Bangalore: Olympus Corporation of Japan has filed a lawsuit of about $50 million against its various former and current executives on the ground of accounting scandal, report Yoko Kubota and Linda Sieg of Reuters. 19 people are under the chopping block, including a few from the Board of Directors and even the current President of the company.

Michael Woodford, former Chief Operating Officer and President of Olympus, was removed from his office last year in April. Woodford reported of an acquisition scandal of Olympus pertaining to the $2.2 billion contract of Gyrus Group. Thomson Reuters revealed a deal of $687 million, which was made between Olympus and a middle-man to bag the Gyrus deal. Exposing this scandal had allegedly led to the firing of Woodward. Olympus was also involved in the illegal acquisition of 3 other Japanese organizations. These scandals had a detrimental effect of the name of Olympus and its stocks plummeted by 75 percent last year.

Olympus furnished a press statement, "The plan is for the current board members who were found responsible and are subject to lawsuits to complete passing on their roles to avoid any impact on business implementation, and all resign at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting that is set to be held in March or April 2012." Olympus is investigating into the accounting scandal deal through a separate panel. According to the panel, "Considering that the truth would have remained in the dark if Woodford had not raised doubts, we must have deep misgivings about the closed nature of Olympus' management to date and the weakness of its corporate governance, which allowed this situation." Apart from being examined by the designated panel, Olympus is facing an inquiry from the police, regulators and prosecutors of Japan. The authorities of U.S. and Britain are also conducting their independent investigations.

Five Internal Directors and one External Director of Olympus are being sued in the lawsuit. People of Olympus under the radar are - Shuichi Takayama, current President of Olympus; Toshiro Shimoyama and Masatoshi Kishimoto, former Presidents of Olympus; Hisashi Mori, former Executive Vice-president, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former Chairman and Hideo Yamada, former Internal Auditor. Olympus is seeking 3.6 billion Yen ($47 million) from the fraudsters, with Yamada, Mori and Kikukawa being charged for a bigger share.