Kobe Steel executives to decide whether to resign after external probe - sources

TOKYO (Reuters) - Kobe Steel executives, including President Hiroya Kawasaki, will decide whether to resign to take responsibility for a cheating scandal after receiving a report from independent investigators, sources told Reuters.

The company is also planning to release an internal report on the falsification of product specifications around Friday, said one of the sources, who has been briefed on the matter.

The other source is a senior executive at Kobe Steel. Both requested anonymity because decisions on the future of the executives and a firm date for the release of the report have been not been finalised.

Kobe Steel's admission last month that workers had tampered with product specifications for at least a decade has sent global carmakers, airplane manufacturers and other companies racing to check whether the safety or performance of their products have been compromised.

The company was ordered by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) last month to provide a detailed explanation of the data cheating and steps to prevent future abuses by around November 12.

It later appointed a team of outside investigators, who are due to report to management by the end of the year.

"We received an instruction from METI on Oct. 12 to take steps to find the cause of the problem and craft preventive measures within a month and we are working toward that. We can't comment on whether we will announce this on the 10th and we can't comment on the issue of management responsibility," a spokesman told Reuters by phone, when contacted on Monday.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Ritsuko Shimizu; Writing by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)