Kobe Steel Ltd.'s data fabrication scandal is the latest problem to stain the firm since the 1990s, raising serious questions about its compliance.
"I deeply feel sorry and apologize," Kobe Steel Chief Executive Officer Hiroya Kawasaki said at a news conference in Tokyo Friday, five days after it emerged that Japan's third-largest steel maker had falsified data about many of its products — including aluminum and copper — for a decade.
But he denied that irregularity is now part of the corporate culture.