Ex-Heads of M’bishi Materials Units Indicted over Data Scandal

September 13, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese public prosecutors indicted two former chiefs of Mitsubishi Materials Corp. subsidiaries on Wednesday over a product quality data scandal at the nonferrous metals group.

Hiroaki Murata, 61, and Mutsumi Yasutake, 60, effectively sacked as presidents of Mitsubishi Cable Industries Ltd. and Diamet Corp., respectively, over the scandal, are the first individuals to be indicted over a recent series of data scandals involving major Japanese manufacturers, including Kobe Steel Ltd..

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office apparently believes that the two former subsidiary chiefs' behavior was especially problematic.

The prosecutors also indicted Mitsubishi Cable Industries, Diamet and Mitsubishi Aluminum Co., another Mitsubishi Materials group company, as corporations.

According to the indictment and other sources, product data manipulation was conducted at Mitsubishi Cable Industries in June-October 2017 and Diamet over the 13 months to January 2018. Product inspection certificates were falsified at Mitsubishi Aluminum over the 12 months to December 2016.

Murata and Yasutake were allegedly aware of the misconduct but failed to report it to clients or the parent company while instructing subordinates to cover up related documents.

Since last November, Mitsubishi Materials has disclosed cases of product data falsification at the three group companies and two others--Mitsubishi Shindoh Co. and Tachibana Metal Mfg. Co.

The falsification dates back to around 1977 at Diamet. Affected products were shipped to over 800 client companies in total, according to the parent company.

In June this year, Mitsubishi Materials was stripped of Japanese Industrial Standards certification for a product, leading to the resignation of its then president.

In July, prosecutors raided locations linked to the three indicted subsidiaries, which enjoyed relatively large sales of affected products. Jiji Press