M'bishi Electric punishes 22 execs over inspection cheating scandal

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said Thursday it will penalize a total of 22 current and former executives over an inspection cheating scandal, saying they are responsible for not preventing the decades-long misconduct.

The company said it will reduce monthly pay for some of the current company officials, including President Kei Uruma, and ask some former executives to return part of their compensation. It had previously said 12 officials would be subject to such a penalty.

A panel of outside experts, who conducted a probe into the scandal, said in a final report Thursday that it found a total of 197 cases of misconduct at 17 of its 22 bases in Japan.

The data fraud scandal at one of Japan's biggest electronics makers came to light in June last year, when the company was found to have cheated on inspections for train-use equipment for at least 35 years.

The misconduct involved a range of products from train-use air conditioners to electric switchboards, affecting many customers including government agencies, electric companies and railway operators.

The then chairman, Masaki Sakuyama, and then president, Takeshi Sugiyama, resigned last year to take responsibility for the mismanagement.

© Kyodo News