In this weeks blog I watched a documentary recommended by my university called the 'Olympus 1.7 Billion Dollar Fraud' about a mystifying corporate scandal in Japan that made news worldwide. As a brief summary, Olympus was a huge multi million dollar technology company in Japan and were exposed for fraud for 1.7 billion dollars. There was two heads of the company - Michael Woodford the president and Kikukawa the CEO who had very different loyalties and views.
Apparently irregular payments for acquisitions had resulted in very significant amounts of money in the company's accounts, which was then exposed in an article in the Japanese financial magazine FACTA and had come to Woodford's attention.
Kikukawa would lay very subtle hints to Woodford that he was boss and in charge. For example at a board meeting all executives received a full meal of sushi and Woodford received a tuna sandwich. What this implies to me is that even though woodford was high up in the chain of command within the company he was not respected and treat as equally as others, maybe because he was the only British person in this Japanese organisation or he just had different views on how a company should be ran. It shows he is down the pecking order when it comes to the food chain and respect of other colleagues. Woodford felt out of place and as if something weird was going on. I believe equality in the workplace is vey important as it creates a nice working environment and no bad relationships with colleagues allowing them to work to there full potential.
The suspicions in fraud started when there was 3 payments of $700 million and Woodford did not understand the reason why these companies were bought. Fellow colleagues were sheepish to explain to Michael the reasons why, it became apparent to him there was something not right. I feel disappointed that in todays workplace people use there power to over rule unfairly and I feel like they have ganged up on Woodford even though he has a prestigious position in the company to not tell him what's going on maybe on his race or the fact he has loyalties and not corrupt as they know he would show them for what they are.
Woodford came to the decision to resign and go public to expose Olympus for there corruptness. He was worried for his safety as people have been killed for a lot less as he held the documents that showed evidence off this fraud. He met with a journalist he knew so he could reveal the documents and make this story to go public. I personally feel this is the correct way to approach this situation as his safety will be secured and he can now tackle this situation in a legal and professional manner to help bring Kakukawa and everyone involved down and to be prosecuted.
This story went worldwide and was the hot topic of every media institution around the world, this portrayed the Japanese business market to be corrupt and raised a lot of alarm bells. There was one country with very little media coverage - which was Japan itself. My thoughts on this are that a Japan didn't want to put there business market in a bad light and brushed it under the carpet, this makes me feel uneasy as it shows the power the media has in portrayal and how they want the public to perceive things, brainwashing comes to mind...
In the end the company were exposed, it stated they were concealing for losses in previous years due to the Wall Street crash and the change in inflation rates. This fraud landed Kakukawa with a 3 year sentence. From my point of view it's clear Olympus ruled out any ethical and legal implications and to reduce the risk of this happening in the future I believe the education of finance and laws should be drilled into people so they understand the legal implications behind money and finance and how much of an effect it can have on peoples lives.
A future ambition of mine is to be involved in finance and business investing and this proves to me how important it is to be legal, ethical and professional as it is such a serious matter in the world of today.
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