Data cheating worries spread to Tokyo Skytree, Olympic buildings

Oct 18, 2018 | News On Japan

Oct 18, 2018 (Japan Today) - The landmark Tokyo Skytree tower, facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games and more government offices are among the nearly 1,000 buildings using earthquake shock absorbers produced by KYB Corp, which admitted cheating quality inspection data for more than a decade, officials said Wednesday.

The day after yet another quality control scandal by a Japanese company came to light, building owners across the country began checking their properties to see if they have KYB products installed and whether their inspection data can be trusted.

The Tokyo Skytree operator said it uses a KYB system for absorption and control during a seismic event and is now checking whether more devices manufactured by the company are used at the 634-meter tower in the Japanese capital's east.

The Metropolitan Government said its Nos. 1 and 2 buildings, as well as the Olympics Aquatics Center and Ariake Arena to be used for 2020 games, use KYB products, and it is looking into the possibility of their data being falsified.

While the Tokyo-based industrial component manufacturer has not disclosed the names of the 986 buildings using its products, they were already found to have been installed at the Osaka, Kanagawa and Nagano prefectural government buildings and the Yokohama city government building as well as a Nagoya University facility.

Osaka Gov Ichiro Matsui blasted KYB for installing "defective products" at the prefectural building and demanded compensation and replacement of the devices.

"It shows a decline in corporate ethics. I want (the company) to recognize that data falsification could put people's lives at risk," he told reporters.

Kanagawa prefectural government said it had 16 KYB products installed between March and October last year when it underwent a major renovation and will check whether they need to be replaced.

In the latest quality data fabrication scandal to hit Japan, at least eight inspectors were found to have been involved in altering data on seismic absorber products, according to sources close to the matter.

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