Kobe Steel Ltd falsified data on product quality and
specifications longer than the 10 years that the company had previously stated,
a source with knowledge of the matter said.
Japan's No.3 steelmaker is still trying to nail down the
extent of the tampering, the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity because
he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The cheating went on for decades with the knowledge of plant
and quality control managers, the Nikkei reported earlier, without identifying
the source of the information.
The revelations have sent shockwaves through supply chains
around the world and hammered Kobe shares, which fell to near five-year lows on
Monday on worries about the financial and legal fallout of the cheating
scandal.
Last week investors knocked about US$1.8 billion off the
value of the company as successive revelations deepened the crisis.
The shares were trading nearly 6 per cent higher on Tuesday.
Kobe Steel Chief Executive Hiroya Kawasaki on Friday said
about 500 companies had received its falsely certified products, more than
double its earlier count.
No safety problems have surfaced as the Japanese steelmaker
attempts to confirm the extent of the data tampering, but companies from
operators of Japan's famous bullet trains to the world's biggest aircraft
maker, Boeing Co, have become ensnared in the scandal.
17 October 2017
Reuters
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