Previous Page
News International
Olympus Execs Plead Guilty To Accounting Scam
Three former executives of Japan's electronic firm Olympus have pleaded guilty over charges in connection with a £1bn accounting scandal.
Prosecutors ex-chairman
charged Tsuyoshi
Kikukawa, former executive vice-president Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada with inflating the company's net worth in financial statements for five years, to March 2011.
"The full responsibility lies with me and I feel deeply sorry for letting down our business partners, shareholders and the wider public," Kikukawa told the Tokyo district court at the start of the trial.
"As the president of the company, I take full
responsibility for what happened," he added.
The three former executives had been identified by an investigative panel, commissioned by Olympus, as the main suspects in the fraud seeking to delay the reckoning from risky investments made in the late-1980s bubble economy.
The cover-up, which has been admitted by the firm, has emerged as one of the country's largest corporate scandals.
It was exposed last October by chief executive Michael Woodford, who was sacked by the Olympus board after querying dubious deals later found to have been used to conceal the losses.
Mr Woodford campaigned to
win his job back, but has given up that bid, blaming cosy ties between management and big Japanese shareholders and citing the strain on his family.
Since then, Olympus has admitted it used improper accounting to conceal massive investment losses under a scheme that began in the 1990s.
The firm is still under investigation by
law
enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States.
Last December, it filed five years' worth of corrected financial statements plus overdue first-half results, revealing a $1.1bn (£677m) dent in its balance sheet, triggering talk it would need to merge or forge a business tie-up to raise capital.
Sale of Shares in Cairn India Limited
Cairn announces that, on 24 September 2012, it reached an agreement with Citi to complete an on-market sale of a total of 152,629,500 shares in Cairn India, representing approximately an 8% shareholding.
Following the sale, Cairn retains an approximate 10% shareholding in Cairn India.
Cash proceeds from the sale are expected to be approximately US$910 million (after transaction costs). The proceeds will be used to fund Cairn’s ongoing capital requirements, which include the development of discovered resources in the North Sea as well as Cairn’s wider exploration led growth strategy.
The Board is focused on creating shareholder value and
continually reviews Cairn’s capital structure to ensure the optimal balance of efficiency and flexibility.
Simon Thomson, Chief Executive, Cairn Energy PLC said:
“Cairn is delighted to have realised further value from its Rajasthan discoveries in India.
In line with our stated strategy these proceeds will be used to deliver exploration led growth and fund the development of discovered resources in the UK and Norwegian North Sea.
We are now extremely well positioned both financially and operationally to deliver on our existing high quality portfolio of development and exploration projects.”
Xerox Banking Innovation Accelerates Availability of Financial Services in India, Other Developing Markets
India and other developing markets face an increasing demand for the most basic of banking services. But with India’s 1.2 billion multi-lingual population spread over 1.2 billion square miles, servicing their banking needs comes with challenges.
Researchers at Xerox have invented a banking solution that reduces the cost of establishing
branches – even in rural areas – and automates much needed personal banking services, like opening a bank account or applying for a loan, making it simple for consumers in India and other developing countries to manage their money.
“This innovative approach puts the power of technology into the hands of customers by
eliminating paperwork, lines and inconvenience,” said Nischal Piratla, senior entrepreneur in residence at Xerox Research Centre India (XRCI). “The solution is so simple and effective we see it also being used in some of the most remote corners of the world.”
Xerox innovation automates basic banking tasks by connecting a
bank’s standardised back-office operations with its customer- facing operations – making it economically feasible for banks to set up rural branches.
Developed through ethnographers surveying the issues around getting financial services to rural areas, Xerox plans to pilot the technology in kiosks with one of India’s leading banks. These are
easy to replicate, install and secure in both remote and densely populated areas. The solution builds upon the capability of Xerox multifunction devices to not only scan hand written forms, but to also interact with the resulting content. This eliminates the need for fully staffed bank branches, reduces paper-based processes and provides clients with a user-friendly experience. A prospective bank client walks up to the kiosk and inputs key information that can accommodate several languages. The system automatically verifies and validates the information, and populates back-end databases with the correct information.
Innovations from Xerox built into the banking solution include: • Automatic validation of completeness and correctness of handwritten paper forms
• Language conversion of forms without the need for translation
• Secure technology to overcome slow, error-prone data transmission over satellite networks commonly used in rural areas.