Kobe Steel says specification data falsified on aluminium, copper products

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese steel maker Kobe Steel said that its internal checks found that data was fabricated to falsely show that aluminium and copper products met customer specifications, according to a statement issued on Sunday.

About 4 percent of the aluminium and copper products that Kobe Steel shipped in the period from September 2016 to August 2017 were falsely labelled as meeting the specifications requested by customers, a company spokesman said. The products were shipped to about 200 companies, the spokesman added.

Kobe Steel said it has not found any instances where the products with the falsified data are causing safety problems, according to the statement. However, the company said it will take prompt and appropriate steps if there are any safety issues arising from those shipments.

The company does not know the impact on its earning at this point, the statement said.

Kobe is also looking at whether there was data fabrication before the period of the latest internal audit, the spokesman said.

(Reporting by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)