Nidec's investigation found 850 quality violations — after its accounting scandal

Nidec, the electric-motor giant founded by Shigenobu Nagamori, was already in crisis over an accounting scandal when its own recovery committee began quality checks in January 2026. The checks found suspected improper acts at group plants; in May the company said there were more than 1,000, handed the file to an external committee of lawyers, and let them investigate until September 2.

The report, published September 4, counted 850 improper acts. In 805 of them, parts, processes or designs were changed without telling the customer — the exact shortcut you take when a target is unreachable any other way. Sixty cases were classed as "serious quality matters" because executives or site heads were involved or the act looked like a legal violation. Nidec said no case affected product safety. The committee found the misconduct was concentrated: about nine in ten improper acts came from just three business units.

The committee's diagnosis was organizational, not individual. Short-term results and cost cuts were demanded relentlessly; the group had grown by acquisition faster than its management systems; quality-assurance staffing lagged at site after site, leaving what the report called "an unhealthy, settled state." Investigators found no evidence that Nagamori or other executives directed the misconduct — but the targets set from the top constrained the time and people available for customer responses and quality fixes.

President Mitsuya Kishida, installed after the accounting scandal, promised quality staff expansion, the authority for quality managers to halt and correct work, and global plant audits. Investors moved on their own: a shareholder derivative suit seeks ¥28.7B from Nagamori and former executives. Asahi's editorial put the governance question bluntly — Nidec must break with "Nagamori-style" management, and its founder must explain himself in person.

850 improper acts (805 unauthorized design/process changes), 60 with executive involvement or legal violations; shareholders filed a ¥28.7B derivative suit

Factories were asked to hit short-term profit and cost targets that the committee found constrained everything else, making unauthorized changes the path of least resistance at 805 decision points.

Acquisition-driven growth left management systems and quality-assurance headcount far behind the group's footprint — the report's core phrase was that an "unhealthy state" had become settled practice.

Quality departments lacked both staff and the authority to stop work, so detection depended on the same units that were falsifying records.

The misconduct clustered in three business units, showing the problem was local incentive systems, not a few rogue inspectors.

M&A-built empires outgrow their governance: when factories chase founder-set targets, unauthorized shortcuts become the local optimum. A QA function with no staff or stop authority audits nothing.

The committee's report is published and Nidec has begun its reform program: more quality staff, corrective authority for the quality function, and audits at every global site. The shareholder derivative suit against Nagamori and others for ¥28.7B is pending. A related Nikkei report noted Nidec had proposed former Nippon Steel executives as outside-director candidates, part of the governance reset demanded by the press and investors.