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Olympus Scandal
The Olympus scandal was a case of accounting fraud exposed in Japan in 2011 at optical equipment manufacturer Olympus. On 14 October, British-born Michael Woodford was suddenly ousted as chief executive. He had been company president for six months, and two weeks prior had been promoted to chief executive officer, when he exposed "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", according to ''The Wall Street Journal''. Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the board chairman, who had appointed Woodford to these positions, again assumed the title of CEO and president. The incident raised concern about the endurance of tobashi schemes, and the strength of corporate governance in Japan. Apparently irregular payments for acquisitions had resulted in very significant asset impairment charges in the company's accounts, and this was exposed in an article in the Japanese financial magazine '' FACTA'' and had come to Woodford's attention. Japanese press ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Woodford (executive)
Michael Christopher Woodford, MBE (born ) is a British businessman who was formerly president and COO (April 2011) and CEO (October 2011) of Japan-based optics and reprography products manufacturer Olympus Corporation. Joining Olympus in 1981 and rising to manage its European operations, Woodford was the first non-Japanese person to be appointed as the company's CEO in October 2011, having "exceeded expectations" as president and chief operating officer for the previous six months. Within two months, he became a central figure in exposing the Olympus scandal, having been removed from his position after serving two weeks, when he persisted in questioning fees in excess of US$1 billion that Olympus had paid to obscure companies, which appear to have been used to hide old losses and appeared to have organised crime connections. The scandal rocked Japanese corporate governance, led to the resignation of the entire Olympus board and several arrests of senior executives, includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olympus Head Office Hatagaya Shibuya
Olympus or Olympos ( grc, Ὄλυμπος, link=no) may refer to: Mountains In antiquity Greece * Mount Olympus in Thessaly, northern Greece, the home of the twelve gods of Olympus in Greek mythology * Mount Olympus (Lesvos), located in Lesbos * Mount Olympus (Euboea), located in Euboea * Mount Olympus (Attica), located in East Attica * Mount Olympus (Skyros), located in Skyros * Mount Lykaion, located in Arcadia Turkey * Mysian Olympus (present-day Uludağ), in northwest Turkey * Paphlagonian Olympus (present-day Arıt Dağı near Bartın) * Mount Nif (present-day Nif Dağı in Aegean Turkey) * Lycian Olympus (present-day Tahtalı Dağı near Kemer) Cyprus * Mount Olympus (Cyprus), the highest point (1952 m) on the island of Cyprus In modern times United States * Mount Olympus (Washington), on the Olympic Peninsula * Mount Olympus (Utah), on the Wasatch Front * Mount Olympus (San Francisco), in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood New Zealand * Mount Olympus, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overhead (business)
In business, overhead or overhead expense refers to an ongoing expense of operating a business. Overheads are the expenditure which cannot be conveniently traced to or identified with any particular revenue unit, unlike operating expenses such as raw material and labor. Therefore, overheads cannot be immediately associated with the products or services being offered, thus do not directly generate profits. However, overheads are still vital to business operations as they provide critical support for the business to carry out profit making activities. For example, overhead costs such as the rent for a factory allows workers to manufacture products which can then be sold for a profit. Such expenses are incurred for output generally and not for particular work order; e.g., wages paid to watch and ward staff, heating and lighting expenses of factory, etc. Overheads are also a very important cost element along with direct materials and direct labor. Overheads are often related to accounti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrongful Dismissal
In law, wrongful dismissal, also called wrongful termination or wrongful discharge, is a situation in which an employee's contract of employment has been terminated by the employer, where the termination breaches one or more terms of the contract of employment, or a statute provision or rule in employment law. Laws governing wrongful dismissal vary according to the terms of the employment contract, as well as under the laws and public policies of the jurisdiction. A related concept is constructive dismissal in which an employee feels no choice but to resign from employment for reasons that result from the employer's violation of the employee's legal rights. Forms of wrongful dismissal Being terminated for any of the items listed below may constitute wrongful termination: * Discrimination: The employer cannot terminate employment because the employee is a certain race, nationality, religion, sex, age, or (in some jurisdictions) sexual orientation. * Retaliation: An employer can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Market
A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets as commodities. The term "market" is sometimes used for what are more strictly ''exchanges'', organizations that facilitate the trade in financial securities, e.g., a stock exchange or commodity exchange. This may be a physical location (such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), London Stock Exchange (LSE), JSE Limited (JSE), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or an electronic system such as NASDAQ. Much trading of stocks takes place on an exchange; still, corporate actions (merger, spinoff) are outside an exchange, while any two companies or people, for whatever reason, may agree to sell the stock from the one to the other without using an exchange. Trading of currencies and bonds is largely on a bilateral basis, although some bonds trade o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Transparency
Corporate transparency describes the extent to which a corporation's actions are observable by outsiders. This is a consequence of regulation, local norms, and the set of information, privacy, and business policies concerning corporate decision-making and operations openness to employees, stakeholders, shareholders and the general public. From the perspective of outsiders, transparency can be defined simply as the perceived quality of intentionally shared information from the corporation. Recent research suggests there are three primary dimensions of corporate transparency: information disclosure, clarity, and accuracy. To increment transparency, corporations infuse greater disclosure, clarity, and accuracy into their communications with stakeholders. For example, governance decisions to voluntarily share information related to the firm's ecological impact with environmental activists indicate disclosure; decisions to actively limit the use of technical terminology, fine print, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shareholder Derivative Suit
A shareholder derivative suit is a lawsuit brought by a shareholder on behalf of a corporation against a third party. Often, the third party is an insider of the corporation, such as an executive officer or director. Shareholder derivative suits are unique because under traditional corporate law, management is responsible for bringing and defending the corporation against suit. Shareholder derivative suits permit a shareholder to initiate a suit when management has failed to do so. To enable a diversity of management approaches to risks and reinforce the most common forms of corporate rules with a high degree of permissible management power, many jurisdictions have implemented minimum thresholds and grounds (procedural and substantive) to such suits. Purpose and difficulties Under traditional corporate business law, shareholders are the owners of a corporation. However, they are not empowered to control the day-to-day operations of the corporation. Instead, shareholders appoint dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Capitalization
Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by the number of common shares outstanding. Since outstanding stock is bought and sold in public markets, capitalization could be used as an indicator of public opinion of a company's net worth and is a determining factor in some forms of stock valuation. Description Market capitalization is sometimes used to rank the size of companies. It measures only the equity component of a company's capital structure, and does not reflect management's decision as to how much debt (or leverage) is used to finance the firm. A more comprehensive measure of a firm's size is enterprise value (EV), which gives effect to outstanding debt, preferred stock, and other factors. For insurance firms, a value called the embedded value (EV) has been used. It is also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accounting Scandals
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms "accounting" and "financial reporting" are often used as synonyms. Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, tax accounting and cost accounting. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization's financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers; and management accounting focuses on the measurement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuichi Takayama
A number of individuals whose backgrounds are important to the understanding of the Olympus scandal, which was precipitated on 14 October 2011 when the company's British-born chief executive, Michael Woodford was suddenly ousted as chief executive of Olympus Corporation. He had been only two weeks into the job when he exposed "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", according to ''the Wall Street Journal''."Olympus President: Will Do Utmost To Avoid Delisting" (subscription). ''The Wall Street Journal''. Dow Jones. 7 November 2011. Retrieved 8 November 2011. The US$2.2 billion deal in 2008 to acquire British medical equipment maker Gyrus Group, and the US$687 million paid to a middle-man were questioned. After initia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Money Laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions. It is usually a key operation of organized crime. In US law, money laundering is the practice of engaging in financial transactions to conceal the identity, source, or destination of illegally gained money. In UK law the common law definition is wider. The act is defined as "taking any action with property of any form which is either wholly or in part the proceeds of a crime that will disguise the fact that that property is the proceeds of a crime or obscure the beneficial ownership of said property". In the past, the term "money laundering" was applied only to financial transactions related to organized crime. Today its definition is often expanded by government and international regulators such as the US Offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
