Japanese prosecutors raided the offices of Olympus Corp and the home of a former executive yesterday in a probe into a US$1.7 billion accounting scandal that has threatened the survival of the once-proud camera and medical equipment maker.
Tokyo prosecutors, police and financial regulators have joined forces in a rare joint investigation of the 92-year-old company, which has admitted to hiding huge investment losses via questionable merger and acquisition deals and other accounting tricks stretching back over two decades.
Public broadcaster NHK showed dozens of black-suited investigators marching double-file into an office building that houses three Olympus subsidiaries acquired under one of the loss-making schemes, in what has become one of Japan’s biggest corporate scandals.
Investigations moved into high gear after a panel of experts appointed by Olympus to probe the scandal said early this month that two senior former executives masterminded the scheme with the help of investment bankers. It also found that three former presidents, including Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, who resigned in October over the scandal, had known about the cover-up.
Japanese TV also showed investigators raiding Kikukawa’s residence, as well as Olympus headquarters in a high-rise office district on the western edge of central Tokyo.
Olympus acknowledged the raids in a statement.
“We will continue to cooperate fully with investigative authorities in order to bring the facts to light,” the company said.
“We would again like to apologize deeply for causing great trouble and worry for our shareholders, investors and those we do business with,” Olympus said.
Olympus last week filed five years of corrected accounts, plus overdue first-half results, meeting a Tokyo Stock Exchange deadline to avoid a humiliating delisting, but they revealing a much-depleted balance sheet as the company tries to put the scandal behind it.
The company could still face delisting if the exchange deems that the company’s accounting deceit is sufficiently grave.
Former chief executive Michael Woodford, who blew the whistle on the scandal after being fired in October, is campaigning to get his job back, but he faces long odds in his battle with current management, which is expected to get backing from its bankers for a plan to bring in outside investors to bolster the company’s finances.
“I’m tremendously sad that it’s come to this, especially when it could have been avoided, depending on the actions of upper management,” Olympus employee Masaharu Hamada said outside the company’s headquarters as it was being raided.
Hamada has taken legal action against the company in a case unrelated to the accounting scandal, charging that he was subjected to harassment by management after reporting a compliance breach by his supervisor.
A lower Tokyo court has ruled in his favor and the case is now on appeal.
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Dutch brewing company Heineken NV on Friday announced an investment of NT$13.5 billion (US$414.62 million) over the next five years in Taiwan. The first multinational brewing company to operate in Taiwan, Heineken made the statement at a ceremony held at its brewery in Pingtung County. It also outlined its efforts to make the brewery “net zero” by 2030. Heineken has been in the Taiwanese market for 20 years, Heineken Taiwan managing director Jeff Wu (吳建甫) said. With strong support from local consumers, the Dutch brewery decided to transition from sales to manufacturing in the country, Wu said. Heineken assumed majority ownership and management rights
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI