Olympus and ex-executives plead guilty to fraud charges

Japanese camera and medical equipment maker Olympus and three of its former executives yesterday pleaded guilty to charges related to a $1.7bn (€1.35bn) accounting cover-up.

The scandal was exposed last October by CEO Michael Woodford, who was sacked by the Olympus board after querying dubious deals later found to have been used to conceal the losses.

Revelations of the fraud revived calls for more outside scrutiny of its boardrooms but have failed to trigger sweeping corporate governance reforms similar to those introduced a decade ago in the wake of US scandals such as at Enron.