Share

Regulators to seek penalty on Toshiba for false accounting: Nikkei

Toshiba remains Japan’s 10th-biggest company by assets and market value despite its stock price falling 26 per cent since the scandal surfaced in early April.

Advertisement

Other sources with knowledge of the probe have said investigators were looking into the role that top officials played in the irregularities, focusing on whether they had knowingly encouraged wrongdoing.

Toshiba expects to take as much as $three billion in fees associated to 6 years of improper accounting, a scandal set to drive out Chief Executive Hisao Tanaka and different firm leaders, sources accustomed to the matter stated this week.

A panel investigating a huge accounting scandal at Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has found top executives were involved in “improper practices”.

Improper accounting included overstatements and booking profits early or pushing back the recording of losses or charges, and such steps often led to even higher targets being set for divisions in the following period.

“Within Toshiba, there was a corporate culture in which one could not go against the wishes of superiors”, the report said. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is backing the corporate reform campaign, as he cracks down on misbehaving corporations in a bid to attract desperately needed foreign investment. but we are yet to see any ground breaking revelations. According to the anonymous source, Tanaka, Norio Sasaki, vice chairman and former president, and Atsutoshi Nishida, adviser and former president, exacerbated the inappropriate practices in meetings and emails by putting pressure on departments to reach budget targets.

Toshiba has been unable to close its books for the latest financial year as a result of the investigation and was also forced to cancel its dividend.

Toshiba’s shares are “almost certain” to be placed under special monitoring, according to a stock exchange source, who added that he doubted it would be delisted.

The panel is expected to warn that the firm needs to downgrade its operating profit by more than 150 billion yen ($1.21 billion) over the last five years to March because it overstated earnings and postponed reporting necessary costs, NHK said. Says to release entire report, hold news conference at 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on July 21.

Advertisement

Bosses at Toshiba, Japan’s 10th largest company, were behind a plan that artificially inflated profits by $1.2bn (£800m).

Pedestrians walk past a logo of Toshiba Corp outside an electronics retailer in Tokyo Japan