Shares in Olympus fell as much as 30% on Tuesday after the company admitted to hiding losses on securities investments for decades.
The company said it had used funds related to past acquisitions to cover these losses.
This is the biggest disclosure Olympus has made since former chief executive, Michael Woodford, claimed that he was fired for raising questions about them.
Olympus executive VP, Hisashi Mori, has been dismissed as a result.
"It's big. Olympus was supposed to be a paragon of corporate society," said Darrel Whitten of Investor Networks Inc, an investor relations consultancy.
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