China Toy Boss Kills Self After Recall
We've been covering this story for a while now, but this is wild... When Mattel Inc. recalled nearly a million toys manufactured by Zhang Shuhong's
When Mattel Inc. recalled nearly a million toys manufactured by Zhang Shuhong's company, he fought hard to find a way to resume sales to America. They were the lifeblood of his firm, Lee Der Industrial Co., Ltd., and its lucrative share of the export boom driving China's economic growth.
But as Zhang's factories in the southern city of Foshan lay idle, workers started drifting off, fearing they would never start up again. Then Chinese authorities sealed Zhang's ruin by announcing Thursday that he was prohibited from exporting toys until further notice because of the defects denounced by Mattel.
Zhang was found dead in a company warehouse two days later, colleagues said Monday, apparently having hanged himself in despair. His death dramatized the high stakes in an international scare over unsafe Chinese products and an increasingly vigorous government crackdown designed to restore confidence in the vital export industry...read on (h/t Kathy)