Top management at Fujitsu Ltd. will see their pay cut over the coming months in punishment for a major computer failure at the Tokyo Stock Exchange that delayed trading on Nov. 1, the company said Friday.
Fujitsu was blamed by Tokyo Stock Exchange Inc. for the problems that delayed the start of trading until 1:30 p.m. local time (0430 GMT), which is four and a half hours later than normal and one and a half hours before the end of the session.
Hiroaki Kurokawa, president, will see half of his pay deducted for 6 months while two other company vice presidents, Michiyoshi Mazuka, who is responsible for Fujitsu's systems sector, and Koichi Hironishi, who is responsible for Fujitsu's financial systems sector, will see a fourth of their pay cut for 6 months. Four other staff will lose 10 percent of their salary for either 6 or 3 months.
Naoyuki Akikusa, chairman, will forgo half of his salary for 6 months at his own request, Fujitsu said.
The computer glitch was traced back to the incorrect patching of a file in mid-October during an upgrade to the trading system. A bug was found in an existing program, however Fujitsu provided incorrect instructions as to how to apply a patch, according to the exchange.
The bug didn't reveal itself until the morning of Nov. 1 when the stock and convertible bond trading system crashed while it was being started. The problem hadn't appeared earlier because it was related to a monthly data compression run that occurred on Oct. 31 after trading had finished, the exchange said.
The punishments dished out by Fujitsu closely mirror those imposed on senior executives of the stock exchange. The exchange announced on Nov. 11 that its president, Takuo Tsurushima, will see his pay cut in half for six months and two other executives will lose 30 percent of their pay for six months, it said. Five other staff were also censured.
