TOKYO, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Toshiba Corp. shareholders voted Friday to oust its board chairman along with another director over a governance scandal that has sullied the reputation of the Japanese multinational conglomerate.
The shareholders' vote to remove the pair after an independent probe at the request of the shareholders found the Japanese conglomerate had tried to collude with the government to thwart proposals by foreign activist investors.
Board Chairman Osamu Nagayama, under pressure from shareholders -- around 50 percent of which are foreign investors -- to step down, was voted out, along with Nobuyuki Kobayashi, a member of Toshiba's audit committee.
The shareholders' vote followed Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa's pledge to win back their trust and improve the conglomerate's ethical practices five years after a widely-reported accounting scandal at Toshiba that rocked the corporate world both domestically and internationally.
Toshiba has been in hot water most recently after a probe by lawyers found the conglomerate had tried to enlist the help of the industry ministry to block proposals by activist investors in a general shareholders' meeting in July 2020.
The probe determined that "in collaboration with the ministry, Toshiba exerted undue influence over the shareholders." It concluded that the meeting in question was "not managed fairly."
In a desperate bid to redeem itself, the embattled Japanese conglomerate altered its picks for board of director nominees for shareholders to approve, cutting two nominees who were on its audit committee from the original 13 directors put forward. Enditem