January 17, 2012
Like everyone else, I have been following the Olympus financial scandal with great interest. My ears perked up with the first mention in the Western media several weeks ago of potential involvement of the company’s “internal auditor.” However, I was quickly assured by internal audit colleagues in Japan that the individual mentioned was not actually the company’s internal auditor as we know the function in the West.
A recent article published by Bloomberg, titled “Olympus Clears KPMG in Fraud, Faults Internal Auditors,” once again raised the specter that internal audit colleagues in Japan were being accused of wrongdoing. Could I have been mistaken in defending the company’s internal auditors when the first accusations were leveled?…