Toshiba's accounting scandal may lead to huge fine

Independent committee will investigate

Toshiba’s fraudulent accounting may have led to an overestimation of its profits by some 170 billion yen (1.26 billion euro), about three times as much as the earlier estimates of 50 billion yen (370 million euro). An independent committee will now look at the company’s accounting from the past six years to find out what has happened.

A spokesperson stated it is not clear which indictments the company may face, but the Japanese company is taking into account that it may have to pay a huge fine, up to several hundred billion yen.

The independent committee will almost certainly ask the company to replace its board, which means that vice president of the board, Norio Sasaki, and CEO Hisao Tanaka will probably end up on the chopping block during the shareholders meeting in September. That is what press agency Reuters has heard from several insiders, but it is not clear who would replace these two.

The investigation is also the reason why Toshiba has not been able to finalize the accounting for its previous fiscal year as it still remains to be seen how much of the investigation’s costs will be added to the previous fiscal year.