Numbers 'too embarrassing' to show fuelled Toshiba scandal

Tokyo

"GET it done like your life depends on it." That was the message former Toshiba Corp president Atsutoshi Nishida delivered to underlings in 2008. And they got it done.

The shame of earnings considered "too embarrassing" to show publicly helped drive an accounting scandal at the Japanese industrial giant that led to the resignations of Mr Nishida and his two successors on Tuesday. Now, the maker of nuclear reactors, memory chips and home appliances must correct at least US$1.2 billion of earnings across more than six years.