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Japan's Toyo Tire approves new president, management lineup following nationwide scandal

Xinhua, November 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. confirmed Thursday that its senior corporate officer will replace President Takuji Yamamoto with the embattled firm also announcing a swathe of management changes in a bid to restore public faith following a series of highly-publicized scandals.

The scandals involved the firm falsifying performance data, or not conducting the requisite tests on products used to absorb vibration that are used in trains and ships, among other end users.

At an extraordinary shareholders meeting held Thursday, it was decided that Yamamoto would be succeeded by Senior Corporate Officer Takashi Shimizu and Katsumi Komaguchi, a former deputy chairman of Kyocera Document Solutions Inc., will become the firm's chairman.

Yamamoto was quoted as telling the shareholders meeting that he was sorry for the data falsification scandal, that, aside from trains and ships, had also led to faulty shock absorption products being installed in around 150 buildings in Japan, including hospitals and schools, to protect them against potentially devastating earthquakes.

Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. said that while its former managers will likely not be sued, it announced recently that its financial situation had grown increasingly severe in the wake of its scandal.

The firm announced a group net loss of 4.32 billion yen (about 35 million U.S. dollars) for the January-September period, having logged losses amounting to almost 40 billion yen.

The firm's latest scandal regarding its absorbers used in vehicles, comes on the heels of a previous scandal involving its use of faulty shock absorbers used in buildings, with the latest scandal involving just under 90,000 of its faulty products being delivered to 18 companies.

The scandal-hit firm said that following pressure from the transport ministry to investigate the root cause of the falsified data leading to faulty products being allowed to hit the market, confirmed what it described as "improper practices" taking place at a factory belonging to one of its subsidiaries, Toyo Chemical Industrial Products Co., located in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture.

Following the advent of malpractice at the factory detected on Aug. 20, the firm halted the shipment of its products on Sept. 2. The firm decided in June this year that Yamamoto would step down to account for the firm's deliberate blunder.

Tokyo Tire is no stranger to controversy as in 2007 its then president stepped down following the revelation the company falsified data regarding the fireproof resistance capability of panels it produced. Enditem.