Prosecutors charged three ChuoAoyama PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants Monday with falsifying Kanebo Ltd. accounting reports in conspiracy with the ailing cosmetics firm's executives in fiscal 2001 and 2002.
Indicted were certified public accountants Kuniaki Sato, 63, Seiichiro Tokumi, 58, and Kazutoshi Kanda, 55, of the Japanese unit of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Group.
They were arrested by prosecutors in September along with ChuoAoyama CPA Kazuya Miyamura, 48.
The prosecutors decided against indicting Miyamura because he played only a subordinate role in the case, investigation sources said.
The three facing trial are suspected of working together with Kanebo executives to produce false consolidated financial statements showing the firm's assets exceeded its liabilities in fiscal 2001 and 2002, when in reality its liabilities exceeded its assets by some 80 billion yen in each of the two years.
The three allegedly knew the financial statements were false but still approved them. The statements were submitted to the Kanto Local Financial Bureau of the Finance Ministry.
The prosecutors had been investigating the accounting firm on suspicion of making false statements.