Former Olympus Corp. President and CEO Michael C. Woodford said Friday in Tokyo he will give up his proxy fight to regain the top job in the medical equipment and camera maker because of lack of support from Japanese shareholders and trauma suffered by his family.
Woodford will also "most definitely" sue Olympus over what he said was the firm's wrongful dismissal of him as president, he told journalists at the Japan National Press Club.
"I thought, perhaps very naively, Japanese institutional investors would speak out" after a third-party report Dec. 6 suggesting all Olympus executives must be changed, Woodford said. "But (Olympus shareholders) didn't say a word of criticism."