Japan‘s Asahi Shimbun reported on the 3rd that Nideko (originally known as Nippon Electronics), a large Japanese motor manufacturing company, released a report on its accounting fraud investigation by a third-party committee on the same day. The report revealed that there was a large amount of accounting fraud within the Nideko group, totaling about 250 billion yen (100 yen = about 4.39 yuan). The report argues that the root cause of this accounting fraud was the founder‘s insistence on achieving performance goals that exceeded the actual situation, while the company‘s internal and external censorship mechanisms failed to play a role.
It is known that Nideko is a company based in Kyoto that leads the global market share in products such as electric steering assist systems and hard drive motors. The company was founded by Nagamori Shigenbu in 1973 and has continued to grow through active M&A activities. It has a total staff of more than 100,000 people and annual sales of about 2.6 trillion yen.
Asahi Shimbun analyzed that at the end of October last year, the Japanese Exchange Group (JPX) listed Nike as a “share with special attention,” which could lead to its exit from the market. JPX will decide this fall whether to maintain Nike‘s listed status. If the company‘s misreporting performance situation is true, it may face administrative sanctions from the Financial Services Agency. Previously, there have been cases where company executives have been criminally prosecuted for accounting fraud. Aoyama Gakuin University Professor Hon. Jinji Hata said, “If accounting fraud continues for a long time and the amount is huge, then all parties, including executives, will be severely punished.”
In recent years, a number of manufacturing companies in Japan have been exposed to fraud scandals. In January 2024, Toyota Industries, an important component supplier of the Toyota Group, exposed a data fraud scandal. Data fraud occurred in three car engines, and some factories of Toyota and Hino Motors were forced to shut down due to supply chain disruptions. Mitsubishi Electric Motors, one of the representative companies of Japanese manufacturing, was exposed in 2021 for chronic data fraud.
An online survey by a Japanese data analysis company found that over the past five years, 25% of Japanese companies had committed improper behaviors such as embezzlement of public funds, fraud, and violations of regulations. (Strictly)