Michael Woodford, the CEO who turned whistleblower on his own company, sued for £15m

One of the biggest whistleblowers in Japanese corporate history, Michael Woodford, is being sued by the very same company he accused of multi-million-pound fraud for £15million – The Australian Business Review reports.

Woodford, who was the first foreign CEO of Olympus after being with the firm for decades, was fired for not understanding the company culture after becoming suspicious about unexplained payments and the purchase of small companies that had nothing to do with their core businesses. 

A subsequent investigation discovered that accounting fraud was taking place, with an independent panel labelling Olympus “rotten at the core” with “some around contaminated as well.”

The panel added: “Olympus should remove its malignant tumour and literally renew itself.”