Toshiba shares slide almost 10% on report of Westinghouse accounting probe

[TOKYO] Shares of Toshiba Corp tumbled nearly 10 per cent on Thursday after Bloomberg News reported that Toshiba was under investigation by US authorities over accounting related to its Westinghouse nuclear power operations.

US authorities were opening a case on Toshiba even though the company had already been investigated in Japan, and could exert jurisdiction because the case involved US-based Westinghouse, the report said.

The Justice Department and Securities Exchange Commission were looking into the possibility of fraud, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

A Toshiba spokesman said the company was checking the report.

A Japanese panel last year found Toshiba had overstated profits for years at several of its units including its nuclear business.

Toshiba is still struggling to recover from the multi-billion dollar accounting scandal. Earlier this week, it revealed seven previously unknown accounting errors, saying it overstated past profits by 5.8 billion yen (S$70 million) on a pretax basis in addition to 224.8 billion already announced.

REUTERS