Advisors would devise schemes where they would be compensated for holding on to their bad investments over time by other means, such as buying specially issued bonds or paying for non-existent services.
Despite the tightening, a loophole involving intangible assets continued to be exploited: Japanese acquisition accounting rules allow companies to record M&A fees on their deals as part of consideration, and goodwill on consolidation may be depreciated over 20 years.
In October 2011 amidst the controversial removal of the newly appointed chief executive officer, it was revealed that Olympus Corporation had been operating a tobashi scheme in which US$2 billion was said to have been siphoned off to cover bad investments made up to 20 years ago.
[5] On 8 November 2011, in what The Wall Street Journal referred to as "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", the company admitted that the money had been used to cover losses on investments dating to the 1990s.
The company laid the blame for the inappropriate accounting on ex-president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, auditor Hideo Yamada, and executive VP Hisashi Mori,[7] all of whom resigned.