Japan's Toshiba sued by government pension fund over accounting scandal

Japan's massive government pension fund confirmed Thursday that it has sued the crisis-hit Toshiba Corp. for around 960 million yen (9.1 million dollars) in damages over an accounting scandal that brought down the electronics giant's share price.

The 140-trillion-yen Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world's largest of its kind, manages pension reserves for the national pension system and has been switching some of its funds from low-yielding bonds into stocks as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's growth strategy.

The GPIF, confirming it had filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court last month through a trusting bank, is believed to be the first institutional investor in Japan to sue Toshiba over the accounting scandal.

Toshiba, for its part, said it was not aware of the suit, local media reported.

Toshiba stock price fell sharply since last April when the company's accounting problems were first disclosed. The company admitted last September that it had overstated its profits by nearly 225 billion yen over the past seven years, unfolding one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals in years.

A group of individual shareholders filed a suit against the electronics giant and some of its former executives together last December, seeking 173 million yen in damages for losses incurred after the company's stock price plunged over the accounting scandal. Endit