Akebono Brake Industry admits up to 20 years of ‘inappropriate conduct’ relating to OE reporting

Akebono Brake Industry Co., Ltd., the well-known Japanese brake manufacturer, has admitted “inappropriate conduct” relating to periodic inspection reports destined for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) dating back to January 2001.

According to the company, in November 2019 the management received a report from its internal Quality Assurance Division stating that “inappropriate conduct had been carried out within periodic inspection reports submitted to Japanese automakers regarding products manufactured in the company’s Japanese plants”. In March 2020, an inspection committee chaired by an outside lawyer was convened to administer an audit. This confirmed that such “inappropriate conduct” had indeed taken place.

Specifically, Akebono staff modified inspection data to the median of customer’s control values or values similar to numbers previously reports. In some cases they reported data from unperformed inspections, using past inspection data. And in other cases they carried out only one sample when the required number is two.

Akebono reports that the aforementioned inappropriate conduct has been “reported to the impacted customers” and plans to rectify its processes have been put in place.