Last week we reported that in the latest instance of criminal Japanese corporate malfeasance, Japan"s third-biggest steel producer admitted falsifying data about the quality of steel, aluminum, copper, iron powder and other products it sold to customers across virtually every single industry. The news sent the company"s stock tumbling 43% from levels before the scandal broke, to the lowest price since 2012.
The downstream impact was quickly felt, with selling hitting names across the global supply chain...
... while the NYT reported that the fallout has the potential to spread to hundreds of companies. As of a week ago, the extent of the problems at Kobe Steel was still unfolding, and prompte the Nikkei newspaper to conclude that "the falsification problem has become an issue that could destroy international faith in Japanese manufacturing."
Well, as of moments ago that tipping point was this much closer, when the same Nikkei reported that some Kobe Steel plants in Japan had been falsifying product quality data for decades, well beyond the roughly 10-year time frame given by the lying steelmaker. According to the Japanese newspaper, "employees involved in the data manipulation used the industry term tokusai to refer to shipping of products that did not meet the standards requested by customers", the Nikkei source said. Though tokusai usually refers to voluntary acceptance of such products, plants sometimes sent substandard goods without customers" consent. The word was apparently in use at some plants for 40 to 50 years.
But wait, it gets better.
Not only did the company, having already been caught, lie to shareholders and rule-abiding employees how long this illegal behavior had been going on, but - in a glaring example of corporate idiocy - had effectively enshrined and codified its fraudulent ways, as the cheating procedures eventually became institutionalized in what was essentially a tacit fraud manual, allowing the practice to continue as managers came and went.
Meanwhile, the Nikkei also reports that everyone could have been in on it, as data manipulation may have occurred with the knowledge of plant foremen and quality control managers. Some shipments even came with forged inspection certificates.
Kobe Steel has tapped senior officials in the aluminum and copper business - where most of the misconduct took place - to serve on its board. How far up the chain of command knowledge of the fraud may have extended in the past remains an open question.
According to the latest update, systemic data falsification took place at no less than four Japanese production sites and appears to have affected virtually every product made by the company: the scandal has spread to the manufacturer"s mainstay steel business, with revelations Friday that steel wire was also shipped without inspection or with faked certificates. Meanwhile, the number of affected customers has swelled from around 200 to roughly 500.
One can only imagine the "honesty", measured in alpha, beta and gamma radiation, if Kobe was also behind the Tepco nuclear disaster, where of course as we leaned over the past 6 years, the amount of data fabrication was just as unprecedented. It is almost as if there is something rather rotten with Japan"s entrenched, corporate ways...
But not to worry: in an amusing twist, Kobe Steel has promised it will complete safety inspections for already shipped products in two weeks or so. A report on the causes of the fraud and measures to prevent a recurrence will come out in a month or so; we can"t wait to read the lies in that one. The steelmaker is conducting a groupwide probe that includes interviews with former senior officials. Because if there is anything Kobe will be successful at, it is diligent, honest self-reporting.
Where the company is certainly lying however, is when it told analysts earlier on Monday that "liquidity is not an issue" according to Bloomberg. Judging by the explosion in Kobe Steel CDS in recent days...
... one more gaffe by the scandal-plagued company, and Kobe Steel will be insolvent. As for all those who are considering providing liquidity to this fraud of a company, good luck with lying to yourselves that you will ever see any of that money back.
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