A number of individuals whose backgrounds are important to the understanding of the Olympus scandal, which was precipitated on 14 October 2011 when the company's British-born chief executive, Michael Woodford was suddenly ousted as chief executive of Olympus Corporation. He had been only two weeks into the job when he exposed "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", according to the Wall Street Journal. The US$2.2 billion deal in 2008 to acquire British medical equipment maker Gyrus Group, and the US$687 million paid to a middle-man were questioned. After initial denials, the company admitted that prior acquisitions had been used to cover investment losses. As regulators and police on three continents begin to investigate and trace th