Reuters: Technology News: Olympus and former executives plead guilty in fraud trial

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Olympus and former executives plead guilty in fraud trial Sep 25th 2012, 02:38 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Anti-Japan protests reignite across China on occupation anniversary Tue, Sep 18 2012 Peregrine CEO pleads guilty to fraud; to stay in jail Mon, Sep 17 2012 Long-time Madoff employee to plead guilty: prosecutors Wed, Sep 12 2012 Three ex-UBS bankers convicted of municipal bond rigging Fri, Aug 31 2012 Analysis & Opinion Krugman’s legacy: Fed gets over fear of commitment The Olympus logo on its camera is seen in this illustrative photograph taken in Tokyo November 24, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon TOKYO | Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:38pm EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Three former executives of Japanese camera and endoscope maker Olympus Corp, and the company itself, pleaded guilty on Tuesday after being charged in connection with a $1.7 billion accounting cover-up in one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals. Prosecutors charged ex-chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former executive vice-president Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada with inflating the company's net worth in financial statements for the fiscal years ended March 2007 and 2008, in violation of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law. "The full responsibility lies with me and I feel deeply sorry for letting down our business partners, shareholders and the wider public," Kikukawa told the Tokyo district court at the start of the trial. "As the president of the company I take full responsibility for what happened," he added. The three former executives had been identified by an investigative panel, commissioned by Olympus, as the main suspects in the fraud seeking to delay the reckoning from risky investments made in the late-1980s bubble economy. The scandal was exposed last October by chief executive Michael Woodford, who was sacked by the Olympus board after querying dubious deals later found to have been used to conceal the losses. Woodford campaigned to win his job back, but has given up that bid, blaming cosy ties between management and big Japanese shareholders and citing the strain on his family. Since then, Olympus has admitted it used improper accounting to conceal massive investment losses under a scheme that began in the 1990s. The firm is under investigation by law enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States. In December it filed five years' worth of corrected financial statements plus overdue first-half results, revealing a $1.1 billion dent in its balance sheet, triggering talk it would need to merge or forge a business tie-up to raise capital. (Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Daniel Magnowski) Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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