Another firm falsified quake damper data for products used in schools, gov't buildings

TOKYO -- Amid the chaos of the data falsification scandal that has engulfed shock absorber manufacturer KYB Corp. and its subsidiary, a second company came forward on Oct. 23 to announce data manipulation of the quality of its shock absorbers and stabilizers.

Construction material company Kawakin Holdings Co. (Kawakin HD), based in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, disclosed that the questionable products made by one of its subsidiaries and sold by another had been used in buildings across 26 of the nation's 47 prefectures, including city halls and schools.

Kawakin is in the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and recorded sales of 39.1 billion yen in its consolidated statement of accounts released in March 2018. The company employs roughly 1,800 people, and mainly produces and sells construction materials used in public projects such as bridges and other infrastructure. The company entered the market for selling shock absorbing and stabilizing dampers in 2005.

"We deeply apologize for causing a great deal of worry and trouble," said Kawakin HD President Shinkichi Suzuki. According to the company, the products for which the quality data was fabricated were used in 93 buildings, and 31 of them were educational facilities such as schools. Those facilities used a total of 1,423 of the company's questionable products.

However, as for the locations, Kawakin HD said they had not yet been able to contact the owners, and would refrain from releasing the names of the buildings until they received permission to do so.

A total of three inspectors from the company were thought to be involved in the data manipulation since 2005. During the 13-year period, one inspector was replaced by another after a certain period. President Suzuki said that the company "could not confirm" if the method for falsifying the data had been passed on in a manual or by some other method between the inspectors. Of the three, one is retired and cannot be questioned, but the other two were quoted as saying by the company that they changed the data in order to deliver a product before the deadline requested by the client.

According to the Saitama Municipal Government, the troubled Kawakin stabilizing dampers were used in the city hall building. Out of the 122 dampers equipped in October 2016 to strengthen the building's earthquake resistance, 12 are suspected of having their quality data falsified. The city is also facing the issue of the use of faulty KYB Corp. equipment used in the new government building for the city's Omiya Ward that is currently under construction.

"It's a shame that suspicion of data falsification concerning facilities used by so many residents have come out," said a Saitama Municipal Government official in charge of the issue. "We will confirm the situation and request that the issue be dealt with by replacing equipment or other measures."

(Japanese original by Atsushi Matsumoto and Norihito Hanamure, City News Department, Naoya Matsumoto, Business News Department, and Yuki Machino, Chiba Bureau)