Japanese authorities may take weeks to make any arrests over the accounting scandal at Olympus, though initial findings by an investigative panel of experts are due to be released in days, lawyers said.
The panel, set up by Olympus after the scandal broke in mid-October, is due to report its findings in early December, likely paving the way for criminal complaints against former executives, the lawyers said.
Even if criminal complaints are filed against former executives or others involved in the scam, which dates back two decades, arrests might not take place by end-year.
This is partly to allow both suspects and prosecutors to spend the new year's holidays at home, since the turn of the new year is Japan's biggest traditional holiday, akin to Christmas in the West. Suspects can be held for a total of 22 days before either being indicted or released.
"I think it would be hard to make arrests in early December and after December 10th, they won't take people into custody," said lawyer Yasuyuki Takai, a former prosecutor. "It's the turn of the year."
The panel is unlikely to recommend criminal complaints against individuals, preferring to leave that to the company, though it would look at whether improper or illegal acts had been committed, a source familiar with the panel told Reuters.
Olympus, a 92-year-old maker of cameras and medical equipment, has lost more than half its market value since the scandal erupted, and it now risks being delisted from the Tokyo stock market and being broken up or taken over.
"Usually, a third-party panel does not go so far as to write who had legal responsibility. That is something that the company should consider from a separate perspective," the source said.
Bowing to pressure from institutional investors, Olympus this month appointed a panel headed by a former supreme court judge to look into the M&A deals at the core of the scandal.
Tokyo police, prosecutors and Japan's markets watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC), have also launched an investigation of the scandal at Olympus.
The firm has so far admitted to using murky acquisitions to hide investment losses stretching back to the 1990s and estimated by media at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Olympus President Shuichi Takayama told employees in mid-November that the company would pursue legal action, including possible criminal complaints, against any executives or former executives that the panel found responsible for the scandal.
