Mitsubishi Materials Corp. restructured its top management for the first time after it accepted responsibility for the 2017 data-tampering scandal, Reuters reported June 11.
Akira Takeuchi will step down as president and will be named chairman after the June 22 annual shareholders meeting. Naoki Ono, the group's executive vice president, will replace Takeuchi as president.
Mitsubishi Materials said it recently uncovered new cases of misconduct at its Naoshima copper smelter and refinery in Japan, which resulted in the revocation of the plant's Japanese Industrial Standards certification.
In May, the company also found cases of improper action at some of its group companies, increasing the number of affected customers from 762 to an undisclosed figure.
Mitsubishi first revealed in November 2017 that its subsidiaries falsified data about products, including aircraft and automobile parts. A probe later found that three of the company's subsidiaries were involved in data manipulation.
The scandal is one of a series of quality assurance frauds to hit Japanese manufacturers, including Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Materials' joint venture partner Kobe Steel Ltd., among others.
In early April, Mitsubishi announced a 7% year-over-year increase in its refined copper production for the first half of its fiscal 2019 to about 187,374 tonnes. The increase came on the back of an expected 11% rise in production at Naoshima and a 1% increase in output at its Onahama plant.
Mitsubishi slashed its fiscal 2018 operating profit forecast by 7% to ¥70 billion amid the data scandal, which would reduce the company's metals, aluminum and advanced materials sales by ¥2 billion to ¥3 billion.
Hiroshi Yao stepped down as the company's chairman April 1. The company said the decision to leave was Yao's own and was not connected with responsibility for the scandal.
