Kobe Steel says nearly 90 customers yet to confirm its products are safe

Kobe Steel Ltd said on Thursday 88 of its customers had yet to confirm its products were safe in the light of widespread tampering of specifications, but it has not received any requests for recalls.

Twenty-six of these customers were overseas companies, Kobe Steel’s CEO Hiroya Kawasaki told a news conference. He did not name any of the companies.

“The scope of the wrongdoing found is far beyond what I had imagined at the start of the probe,” he said.

Japan’s third-largest steelmaker, which supplies manufacturers of cars, planes, trains and other products across the world, said earlier this month that about 500 of its customers received products in which specifications were falsified, one of the biggest industrial scandals in Japan.

Kawasaki updated the total number of affected customers to 525 on Thursday and said the company had assessed there were no safety issues with falsely certified products sent to 437 customers. Of these, 229 customers had confirmed the safety of the products, 91 had found no immediate safety issues and the rest were deemed to be safe by Kobe Steel’s own experts.

However, Kobe Steel has lost a badge certifying the industrial quality of some of its products, which experts have said could affect its contracts with customers. There have been no cancellations as yet, Kobe Steel has said.

The company said its Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) certificate was revoked for some copper products from its Hatano plant near Tokyo.

Kawasaki said he did not expect more cases where the company is found to have breached Japanese industrial standards, adding the company will comment on the financial impact of the scandal when it releases its earnings on Monday.