Three accountants who worked at auditing giant ChuoAoyama Pricewaterhouse Coopers pleaded guilty Thursday before the Tokyo District Court to charges of falsifying Kanebo Ltd.'s earnings in fiscal 2001 and 2002 and hiding over 160 billion yen in liabilities.
The case is the first in which certified public accountants from a top auditing firm are being tried for allegedly falsifying a client's financial statements.
Kuniaki Sato, 63, Kazutoshi Kanda, 56, and Seiichiro Tokumi, 58, bowed, apologized and owned up to the charges, acknowledging they violated the Securities and Exchange Law by helping Kanebo hide a consolidated deficit of 81.9 billion yen in fiscal 2001 and 80.6 billion yen in fiscal 2002.