Toyo Tire faked the safety data on earthquake bearings in 154 buildings

Toyo Tire & Rubber, based in Osaka, was one of Japan's makers of seismic isolation rubber — the large bearings fitted under buildings to absorb the shock of an earthquake. In a country that expects its hospitals and government buildings to stay standing in a quake, the certification on those bearings is the whole product.

In March 2015 the company reported that it had delivered deficient seismic isolation materials to 154 locations across Japan, including municipal government buildings and hospitals. The problem was not only that the rubber fell short of the required performance; the company had submitted false certificates on performance tests, indicating the units had passed the criteria for government accreditation when they had not.

Suspicions about the product performance data had arisen as early as February 2013. After an outside investigation confirmed that non-compliant products had been made and sold, Toyo set up a seismic rubber task force in July 2015 and reorganised its recall and customer-follow-up operations, replacing directors and officers.

The matter became criminal in March 2016, when Osaka police raided the company over the falsification, suspecting a violation of the unfair competition law through fraudulent labeling tied to a fire-department building in Hirakata. For a supplier whose value was the trust behind its certification, faking the test results struck at the reason customers bought from it at all.