Over the past 6 years, Toshiba overstated profits by nearly 152 billion yen, or about $1.2 billion. The company says it will make adjustments to its earnings in response to the findings of in independent investigation committee.
Meanwhile, Toshiba CEO and president Hisao Tanaka has stepped down, along with several other high-level Toshiba executives.
Toshiba Chairman Masaha Muramachi will step in as interim president and the company plans to have a new team in place in about a month.
According to the report, Toshiba’s leaders set goals that were difficult to achieve, leading lower-level employees to fudge the books to make it look like profits were higher than they actually were. Tanaka and other top-level executives were reportedly aware that this was going on, even if they didn’t directly ask anyone to falsify accounting records.
The Japanese company produces a wide range of products including TVs, computers, cameras, appliances, and even nuclear power plants.
Those Japanese execs just don’t know how to cling to their chairs like American corporate foam whippers do…
Always thought there was something fishy about them
Mr. Tanaka should be glad he only lost his job. In times past “falling on one’s sword” was not a idiom.