Olympus will certainly be remembered for at least one thing: The two decade long tobashi scheme by Olympus Imaging Executives to hide billions in losses. "Whi

Olympus will certainly be remembered for at least one thing: The two decade long tobashi scheme by Olympus Imaging Executives to hide billions in losses. "While early activities generated profits in 1987, by 1991 Olympus recorded 2.1 billion losses. Rumors circulated that by the late 1990s, losses had grown larger. Rather than come clean and admit the losses, management continued to ‘double down’ with riskier investments. Olympus created a tobashi scheme to shift losses off the Olympus balance sheet. Companies located in the Cayman Islands were purchased via exorbitant Management and Acquisition Fees. When the first Western President, Michael Woodford, questioned these practices, he was fired after two weeks on the job. Woodford became perhaps the first CEO ever to blow the whistle on his own firm. The subsequent scandal brought arrests of the executive team, an 80% decline in share price, the threat of de-listing on the Tokyo Exchange, and an international look at Japanese Corporate Governance. " https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1053608.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1053608.pdf