President and Chief Executive Hisao Tanaka and his predecessor, Vice Chairman Norio Sasaki, were aware of the overstatement of profits, it said.

The committee discovered that the company had been indulging in accounting malpractice; for instance they would book profits early or the record losses later on rather than at that very moment.

“The company takes the situation it has caused very seriously and we deeply apologize to our shareholders, investors, and all other stakeholders”, Toshiba said in a statement (PDF).

Last week, it was reported that Tanaka, along with board members that include Vice Chairman Norio Sasaki, will step down in September after the discovery of accounting irregularities.

Chairman Masashi Muromachi will take over as interim president. “Going forward, we will renew our commitment to our original management policy, which puts the highest priority on human life, safety and compliance”, the company said in a statement.

Toshiba will reveal its delayed business results for the financial year ending March in August, Reuters added.

The report said Tanaka and Sasaki, who were also successive presidents, had set operating profit targets that the heads of divisions were required to meet, applying pressure by hinting at withdrawing from areas that underperformed.

The company had inflated profits by £1billion over a decade, but was only revealed when the firm’s British president Michael Woodford began asking questions after being contacted by a whistleblower.

Toshiba CEO Hisao Tanaka has resigned after an independent investigation showed he knew about overstated corporate profits for seven years.

The Japanese conglomerate is a huge empire that stretched from home electronics to nuclear power stations, according to the Japanese finance minister, proper implementation of corporate governance is vital to maintain investors’ faith in the market.

In a report likely to lead to wholesale changes at the top, the panel said the 140-year-old company, one of Japan’s best-known corporate brands, had lax controls and a top-down culture that left managers little choice but to fudge their numbers.

It’s said no personal gain was achieved as a result of this scandal, with motives being more about saving the company from impending doom more than trying to line one’s own pockets. It’s also a blow to prime minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to change that. The accounting irregularities of $1.22 billion involved top management.