Falling of Toshiba

Toshiba has sued Western Digital, a past partner company of it, for charging that WD is interfering Toshiba from selling its ship unit.

Live Mint: Toshiba sues Western Digital for $1.1 billion in damages

Toshiba is one of the leading companies in Japan in the industry of electronics. Its products are from personal devices such as PC and washing machine to atomic power plants. However, the investment to the US atomic power plants has been troubled mainly due to the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami disaster occurred in 2011. After this tragedy, authorities in the US, as well as Japan, became to demand much more strict safety standard to the companies dealing with power plants. For that reason, the development of atomic power plants is hardly proceeding in several countries.

Because of money shortage, Toshiba decided to sell the division of chip memory. This announcement ignited broad criticism, as the chipset is a dominant position in the company. Western Digital is one of the main partners of Toshiba in this division. Mutual negotiation became complicated, leading to the series of legal battle.

Toshiba's stock price is quite fragile. Recently, a general meeting of shareholders of Toshiba was conducted. But attendants were fewer than in the past. It may suggest many shareholders lost interest to the words of Toshiba's president.

In the 21st century, some Japanese companies caused problems one after another. Most of them, including Toshiba, had been a company every Japanese respected. It suggests that conventional management strategy is no more useful to maintain a company in the coming era.