Whistle-blower Michael Woodford says he will sue Japanese camera firm Olympus over his sacking after a "depressing" lack of support from Japanese institutional shareholders scuppered a bid to get his old job back.
The former chief executive said he was ditching his campaign to install a fresh slate of directors under his leadership and would be seeking compensation for his October firing that sparked one of Japan's biggest corporate dramas in decades.
The Briton - the first non-Japanese ever to hold the posts of president and chief executive at the 92-year-old camera maker - said his efforts to rally support for a fresh start for the company had proved fruitless.
"The major reason for the continuing uncertainty is that despite my having done the right thing, none of the major Japanese institutional shareholders have offered one word of support to me and conversely have in effect allowed the tainted and contaminated board to continue in office," he said.
He said the scandal that he had exposed, which involved the covering up of millions of dollars worth of dodgy investments, and the way it had been handled had left a stain on corporate Japan.
Olympus later admitted the deals had been used to cover up huge investment losses dating back to the 1990s and a report from a third-party investigation panel slammed its top management as "rotten".
Japanese authorities have launched a criminal investigation into Olympus, raiding the headquarters in Tokyo last month and questioning its former executives in the alleged fraud.
The third-party panel of lawyers and accountants appointed by the firm said last month that former president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and his predecessor Masatoshi Kishimoto were instrumental in the cover-up. The panel said a small group of top executives hid at least 134.9 billion yen ($1.75 billion) in losses from bad investments in the 1990s.
