Mitsubishi's Tokyo shares suspended and offices raided in wake of car cheating scandal

SHARES in Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi were suspended after a flood of investors tried to bail out of the scandal-hit company in the wake of its fuel usage cheating controversy.

Offices of the carmaker in Nagoya were also raided by Japanese officials after it admitted rigging fuel economy tests on more than 600,000 mini-cars.

Stock market officials at the Nikkei, the Japanese stock exchange where Mitsubishi shares are traded, halted buying and selling in the carmaker’s shares after a flood of sell orders swamped the market.

Sell orders reportedly outnumbered buy orders by ten to one

Shares can be suspended if they drop by a certain pre-defined limit. Shares had indicated a 20% drop. They are currently priced at a record low of 583 yen.

Yesterday Mitsubishi had its biggest share fall for a decade after the Tokyo-based carmaker said it falsified data on for 625,000 vehicles.

About 460,000 of these were made for Nissan. The vehicles affected are the ek Wagon and eK Space by Mitsubishi and the Nissan Dayz and Dayz Roox. None of the cars are sold in the UK.

Mitsubishi is the latest carmaker to have admitted cheating on performance tests after German giant VW last year said it rigged emission tests.

VW will reportedly buy back half a million diesel cars affected by the rigging from customers in the US because it is cheaper than fixing the fault. It will also pay compensation to car owners.