CORRECTION: 11/15/2011, 12:13 p.m. The original version of this story stated that the former head of Japanese Internet portal Livedoor received a suspended sentence. In fact, after exhausting his appeals, Takafumi Horie went to prison in June to serve a two-and-a-half-year sentence. We regret the error.
Last week, Olympus Corp. admitted that former executives disguised more than $1 billion in investment losses as fees and costs incurred in a series of acquisitions. The disclosure raised the prospect of a de-listing from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a potentially catastrophic blow to shareholders who have already lost 80 percent of the value of their holdings in the month since the scandal first surfaced.
