Corporate whistleblower tells of isolation after speaking out

Finding that most of your work colleagues just don’t want to get involved is the most notable aspect to being a whistleblower, one of the world’s most well-known corporate whistleblowers told a meeting in Dublin on Friday.

Michael Woodford, the former president of Japan's Olympus Corporation who was sacked after he raised questions about a $1.7 billion plus suspected fraud within the multinational, cited the Garda whistleblowers when speaking about the position such people find themselves in.

Most people don’t do bad things, he told the European Insurance Forum 2014 conference. But when bad things happen and someone speaks out, most people don’t want to get involved. This was one of the most disturbing things he had learned from his experience.

After being sacked from Olympus, where he believed massive fraud may have involved dealings with the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, Mr Woodford fled to the UK where the police advised him about security on his family home, telling him he needed a re-enforced front door, with no letter box. His wife began to wake in the night, screaming and having panic attacks.

Mr Woodford, who had worked his way up from a position as a salesman and was a former managing director of Olympus Europa Holding, said that what disturbed him most about his experience was the silence of those colleagues he had worked with in Europe and the US, some of whom were friends who knew his family.

“An hour after I was dismissed, apart from one person, they wouldn’t accept my calls.” He said that when his wife would wake in the night screaming he would remember this and think: “You bastards.”

He also said that some of the institutional investors he approached for support during the crisis, declined to do so.

In a lengthy address Mr Woodford, who was one of a very small number of non-Japanese executives to head a major Tokyo company, told of how he received an email in the summer of 2011, just four months after being appointed executive head of Olympus, a plc with a $10 billion market capitalisation, drawing his attention to an article in a small magazine called Facta.

The 30,000-subscriber magazine reported that Olympus had paid $1 billion plus for three small companies that had nothing to do with its business. It also reported that Olympus had paid $700 million to obscure Cayman Islands-based advisers in 2008, for advice on a $2 billion deal. The story was not followed up on by other Japanese media.

Mr Woodford found that none of his management colleagues in the Olympus headquarters wanted to discuss the article. He later learned that the company chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, had told management not to discuss the article with him.

During a tense interchange with Olympus vice president and compliance officer, Hishashi Mori, Mr Woodford asked him angrily who he worked for. “I work for Mr Kikukawa.” the vice chairman replied. “I am loyal to Mr Kikukawa.” Mr Woodford said he knew then that there was “something rotten at the top of the organisation”.

In September 2011, while attending meetings in New York, Facta reported that the dubious transactions had links to “anti-social forces”, a reference to the Japanese mafia. Up to then, Mr Woodford said, he had been thinking about white collar crime. “I was scared.”

He had commissioned a report from PwC on the consultancy fees. He wrote letters outlining his concerns to the Olympus board members and seeking the resignation of the chairman and the vice chairman. He copied the letters to the Olympus auditors , and sought the support of the 14 member Olympus board.

At a subsequent meeting in Tokyo, the board unanimously supported a motion from Mr Kikukawa that Mr Woodford be sacked. The directors held their hands up enthusiastically to support the motion, he said.

A few hours after being sacked Mr Woodford telephoned Financial Times reporter Jonathan Soble, telling him he feared for his safety and needed to meet immediately. A day later Mr Woodford's concerns about the Olympus transactions were worldwide news everywhere but in Japan.

Within a month $7 billion had been written off the market capitalisation of Olympus. Mr Kikukawa and Mr Mori were later convicted but given suspended sentences. What disturbed him most, Mr Woodford said, was not the fact that no-one went to jail. It was the way colleagues did not stand by him in the immediate aftermath of his being sacked. “Not even a message to ask ’how are you?’,” he told the Dublin gathering.