THE WHISTLEBLOWER in Japan’s Olympus scandal, former chief executive Michael Woodford, blasted Japanese shareholders yesterday for failing to stand up for him amid signs that domestic and foreign investors are split over his campaign to be reinstated.

Mr Woodford, an Englishman who was a rare foreign CEO in Japan, went public with his concerns over crooked accounting at Olympus after his dismissal in October, leading to the uncovering of a $1.7 billion fraud that has left the company badly weakened.

He is now lobbying shareholders of the maker of cameras and medical equipment to support his reinstatement and replace the disgraced board with a new team that he is assembling.

At least three big foreign shareholders have backed Mr Woodford’s bid to return to the company where he spent three decades working his way up from salesman to CEO. However, not one Japanese shareholder or lender has openly supported him since he blew the whistle.

Mr Woodford also launched an emotional attack on the firm’s current Japanese boss.

“Should that man be the president and custodian of one of Japan’s iconic companies?” he said of Olympus president Shuichi Takayama, one of the directors who had voted unanimously to sack him after he had queried the firm’s dubious book-keeping.

Mr Woodford also voiced concerns that Mr Takayama was planning to raise money by placing new shares with a third party. That would dilute the stakes of existing owners and weaken their hand in a proxy battle between Mr Woodford and whoever the existing board chooses as its next CEO candidate.

The existing board, led by Mr Takayama, has said he and fellow directors will resign soon, to make way for a new board to be elected by shareholders at a meeting in March or April, and that the board wants to choose its successors before it quits.

It has set up an external panel to advise on board candidates and other management issues.

Mr Takayama even suggested yesterday that the board would consider Mr Woodford as a candidate for his old job, but few analysts gave the gesture any credence. – (Reuters)