Fujitsu execs take pay cut after Tokyo exchange crash

Humble apologies

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Director, 25th November 2005 16:37 GMT

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Fujitsu is to dock the pay of senior executives after the Japanese computer giant took the blame for a software glitch that forced the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) to suspend trading earlier this month. The exchange was only able to operate for 90 minutes on 1 November due to bugs with a newly installed transactions system, developed by Fujitsu, which was supposed to help cope with higher trading volumes. The interruption in trading was the worst in the history of the exchange.

"Flawed instructions we received from Fujitsu regarding system improvements to its software seem to have caused the glitch," TSE spokesman Mitsuo Miwa told Reuters. The news agency reports that the exchange is yet to decide whether or not to sue Fujitsu over the outage. Nagoya Stock Exchange experienced a similar trading halt three days after the TSE glitch, which have also been traced back to Fujitsu software.

In a show of humility over the cock-up, Fujitsu's board has agreed to slash president Hiroaki Kurokawa's salary in half for six months, and levied pay-cuts of between 10 to 25 per cent on other senior executives including those running its financial systems division. Tokyo Stock Exchange has already imposed a similar set of pay cuts on its executives right down to slashing the monthly pay of President Takuo Tsurushima by half for six months. It's unclear if Fujitsu will plough the cost savings from its salary cuts into its own business or hand over the dosh to Tokyo Stock Exchange. ®

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