In this environment, Olympus began to increasingly rely on investment income as part of its business strategy. Unfortunately for Olympus, the Japanese equities market saw a precipitous decline in the 1990s. The Nikkei 225 index had lost over 50 percent of its value by December 31, 1999. Given the accounting standards in Japan at the time, Olympus did not feel
compelled to report the unrealized losses they had incurred on the firm’s securities investments. However, Japan’s Business Accounting Deliberation Council
1 expressed increasing interest in fair value accounting during this period, and it became apparent that Olympus would eventually be required to report these losses. In fact, the Business Accounting Deliberation Council announced its intention to introduce fair value accounting in 1997 and completed its accounting standard for financial instruments in January 1999 (Gordon 1999).