Toshiba’s chief executive Hisao Tanaka and some other senior officials resigned on Tuesday for their roles in inflating profits by $1.2 billion over a period of six years -the country’s biggest accounting scandal in years.

“I see this as the most damaging event for our brand in the company’s 140-year history. I don’t think these problems can be overcome overnight,” Tanaka told a news conference after taking a bow of contrition.

Tanaka will be temporarily replaced by Chairman Masashi Muromachi who is considered a safe pair of hands to lead Toshiba through its current turmoil before handing the reins to a successor.

Tanaka’s predecessors as presidents of the conglomerate, Vice Chairman Norio Sasaki and adviser Atsutoshi Nishida, will also step down after the third-party report showed they played a part in the overstatement of profits going back to the 2008 financial year.

A total of eight officials resigned on Tuesday and Tanaka said that the company is now considering appointing outside directors to over half of its board seats.

According to report by an outside panel of accountants and lawyers, Toshiba had overstated its operating profit by 151.8 billion yen ($1.22 billion), roughly triple of Toshiba’s initial estimate.

“Tanaka and Sasaki pressured business divisions to meet difficult targets and knew they were overstating profits and delaying the reporting of losses, amid a culture of not going against the wishes of superiors,” the report said.

Koichi Ueda, an attorney and head of the panel, said he was surprised by what they had found.

“That a company that represents Japan, to be doing something like this institutionally, was shocking,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Tanaka did not dispute the findings, but said he had no intention of encouraging accounting irregularities.

“It’s not my understanding that I gave orders for improper accounting, but the reality is that such an observation has been made,” Tanaka said.

The findings are expected to lead to the restatement of earnings and potentially hefty fines in Japan’s worst boardroom scandal.

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said earlier on Tuesday that the accounting irregularities at Toshiba were “very regrettable”, coming at a time when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to regain global investors’ confidence with better corporate governance guidelines.

Aso however declined to comment when asked if Toshiba would face any kind of financial penalty.