KOBE (Kyodo) Kobe Steel Ltd. said Tuesday its chairman and president will resign over inappropriate donations totaling about ¥27 million to local assembly candidates.
Executive Vice President Hiroshi Sato, 63, will replace Yasuo Inubushi, 65, as president April 1, the steelmaker said. Inubushi and current Chairman Koshi Mizukoshi, 70, will become advisers.
There was no word on who the next chairman will be.
Kobe Steel said it has discovered that its plants in Kakogawa and Takasago, Hyogo Prefecture, and in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, made inappropriate donations to local assembly candidates supported by the company's labor union, in violation of the political funds control law.
The ¥27 million in donations were used to cover the costs of establishing campaign offices and other expenses in eight local elections since fiscal 2001, the Kobe-based steelmaker said.
Kobe Steel said it will implement measures to prevent a recurrence by listening to the opinions of third-party experts.
A native of Oita Prefecture, Sato joined Kobe Steel in 1970 after graduating in metallurgy from Kyushu University's graduate school. He has a long career in engineering, acting as the head of the steelmaker's technical development division and the material research center.
Inubushi, who is also acting vice chairman of the Kansai Economic Federation, and Mizukoshi, who is also serving as head of the Kobe Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will retire from the steelmaker's board of directors at a shareholders' meeting to be convened in late June.
