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• eBook-Kapitel aus dem Buch Accounting Fraud

  Introduction

  Professor Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …17 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Fraud: A Constant Threat to Companies around the World Fraud is nothing new. History has shown that it has… …criminals (“crime in the streets”). With regard to the business world, it is common knowledge today that there has always been white-collar crime. In… …help a business sur- vive in today’s economic climate, 47% of the respondents thought it was acceptable. Making cash payments to win business was… …practices, and it will also illustrate the results of their deceptions. First of all, however, it may be helpful to define accounting fraud. According to… …business performance and cre- ates a false impression of the company’s financial health. Clearly, accounting fraud is illegal; it subjects the company and… …valuable insights to all of these anti-fraud practitioners, and assist them in rooting out accounting fraud and preventing it in the first place. In… …in a range of approaches: it is the best method to com- plement the traditional lecture sessions. Introduction 23 This book consists of 44… …Harvard professor, once said: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Referring to Santayana, this book looks back to the past in… …order to gain a better understanding of the nature of ac- counting fraud and how to prevent it in the future. There is no better way to under- stand and…

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  Case 16: Tyco International (2002)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …and speciality products, packaging materials, as well as undersea telecommunications networks and financial services. It operated in 100 countries… …, while being nominally based in a tax haven, Tyco continued to operate out of Exeter, New Hampshire, and Boca Raton, Florida. (At this point, it is also… …shareholder suits.) – Tyco accumulated a massive amount of so-called “goodwill” on its balance sheet. It paid high prices for acquired companies, and rather… …than writing this cost off as an expense (which would have to be reported to shareholders as a reduction in earnings), it created goodwill. Since the… …middle of 2000, Tyco accumulated over USD 20 billion of goodwill on companies that it acquired for USD 24 billion. In other words, the actual hard assets… …acquisitions would create in the course of the further development of the companies. – Tyco did not report acquisitions that it stated were small enough to be… …con- sidered “immaterial” under US-GAAP. From 1991 through 2001, Tyco spent USD 8 billion on more than 700 acquisitions that it said were not material… …acquisitions, but it had ultimately decided not to take action. In Kozlowski’s view, the SEC probe qualified as an endorsement, and he emerged from the… …York City’s Upper East Side. (Later on, Kozlowski became the object of ridicule after it was revealed that the furnishings at his opulent Fifth Avenue…

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  Case 30: Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (Belgium, 2000)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …of sophistication of the fraud and the amount of imagination that went into it”. Speaking at a news conference in Brussels, he said the fraud… …wowed investors with techno-mirages of humans chatting with computers, it made money with low-tech offerings. Its speech programs in their infancy were… …Europe), although it had never been profitable and had just a few million dollars in annual revenue. As with many high-tech firms, the hope lay in a… …L&H’s hey- day, it hired a former Belgian prime minister as its chairman, and Bill Gates visited, lauding the innovative and ground-breaking speech… …commissioned a special midyear audit by L&H’s regular auditor, KPMG. On November 9, 2000, L&H announced that it would revise financial statements for 2… …with another venture it helped start, Brussels Translation Group N.V. (“BTG”), this time to develop software for auto- matic translation from one… …late 1998, L&H launched a new and elaborate scheme to create additional cus- tomers and, thus, to bolster its reported revenue. It helped create 30… …and intelligence services, developers of strategically impor- tant technologies, and investors. It was supposed to be a win-win-situation. The… …technologies and a helping hand in getting orders from other government agencies. The BND, in turn, got first class technology which it couldn’t develop…

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  Case 33: Vivendi Universal (France, 2002)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …conglomerates, including the Universal film studios and the Uni- versal music group in the United States. It had securities traded on the Paris Stock Exchange as… …his ouster by Vivendi’s board, Messier had issued several press releases that falsely stated that Vivendi did not face an immediate cash shortage. It… …, announced that Vivendi would have run out of money within days because banks had refused to extend it more credit while Messier remained in charge. In… …Companies 195 it had used them as collateral for a loan. However, it had tried to book the loan as revenue until the French stock market regulator… …difficult to decipher; for example, many experts noted that it was hard to distinguish what debt belonged to the environment business and what belonged to… …November 2002, the beleaguered company disclosed that it was also facing a criminal investi- gation by the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, along with a… …big awards in such cases.” Accounting Fraud in European Companies 196 In December 2003, the SEC announced that it filed and simultaneously… …adjustments were made so that the company could meet the ambitious earnings targets that it had communicated to the market. – Vivendi failed to disclose… …arrested in Paris, facing accusations of share-price manipulation, in- sider trading, and embezzlement. First, it was alleged that Messier and his top team… …before the company’s financial situation began to unravel. Finally, it was alleged that generous payments made by Messier to large shareholders and…

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  Case 44: Satyam Computer Services (India, 2009)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …confidence in India Inc., and it is very difficult to restore their confidence.” In 2009, Satyam Computer Services was the fourth-largest Indian… …expanded it from a handful of employees into a back-office giant with a workforce of 53,000 and operations in 66 countries. Satyam delivered… …outsourcing solutions to nearly 700 clients, including 185 “Fortune 500” companies. Thus, it served as the back-office for some of the largest banks… …responsible for clients’ finances and accounting.) “For years, Ramalinga Raju was lionized as one of the whiz-kids of the Indian IT sector,” said one… …started as a mar- ginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has… …attained unmanageable propor- tions as the size of company operations grew,” Raju wrote. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without… …lents were, in fact, made out of thin air. Revenue for the quarter was 20% lower than reported, and the company’s profit margin was a fraction of what it… …staff. – Merrill Lynch, the U.S. investment bank, was engaged by Satyam to explore merger opportunities for the IT outsourcing giant. But within just… …fluctuations in the amount of “unbilled revenue” the company reported. (Unbilled revenue is work done for a customer but not yet invoiced: it represents future… …earnings. Accounting Fraud in Asian Companies 252 However, there is usually little documentation associated with the number, so it is easy to…

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  Case 5: Phar-Mor (1992)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …dis- count” drugstore in Cleveland and decided they had seen the future. They acquired a single drugstore in Youngstown, Ohio, and dreamt of building it… …un- covered the fraud. Phar-Mor’s board of directors insisted that it was plenty active, but fully deceived until it got a tip in late July 1992. Monus… …, but it was disbursed on a Phar-Mor bank account. The travel agent thought it odd that Phar-Mor would be paying these expenses. Since she was an… …“Cookies”. The fraud team used these entries to inflate inventory and earnings. As it would not have been practical to carefully scan all the packets, the… …the operating GLs, the fraud would have been all over. Because the physical inventories were completed during the fiscal year, it was ne- cessary… …did account for a portion of the spike, investigations indicated that a large part of it was due to fraud. The spike was clearly a big red flag that… …Coopers & Lybrand recklessly overlooked. It should have caused an experienced retail auditor to have suspicions about inventory at Phar-Mor. But Coopers &… …(for example, at Christmastime it would be the same concept), and that they relied on their tests of the gross profit schedules. If any large or… …fraud was uncovered, it was determined that Phar-Mor’s actual gross mar- gins were really much lower than the budgeted 15.5%. Accounting Fraud in… …master chef”, the company’s board said. As a private company, Phar-Mor was not exactly structured for scrutiny. It didn’t have to file with the SEC…

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  Case 41: Livedoor (Japan, 2006)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …closely watched in Japan, not only because Horie was a celebrity, but also because it was seen as a test of how serious the authorities were about… …University, Horie built Livedoor by combin- ing a portal site with online brokerage and banking as well as a host of other inter- net services. (It offered… …: “It’s a world of connections, that’s it. If you are young, have no connections and you are from a modest family, there’s nothing you can do, your whole… …price: the deal involved a publishing firm that Live- door apparently already owned. Livedoor had arranged for an investment group it controlled to buy… …, in April 2006, Livedoor lost its listing. The TSE said the company had so far failed to clear up the suspicions that it had deceived investors… …prison. The presiding judge at the Tokyo district court said it was an extremely malicious crime that caused great damage to investors; the company’s… …invited criticism that he was singled out while others found guilty of similar violations had been let go with much lighter penalties. In Japan, it is… …, but the court ruled it was black.” Horie’s defence team tried to portray him as a meek chief executive who relied so heavily on advisers that they… …Court rejected Horie’s appeal of the district court conviction. The appeals court said it agreed with the ruling, arguing that Horie as chief executive… …issue. One Tokyo lawyer said: “It is all politics. Everyone thought this was going to be the next Enron, but now that the dust has settled, it looks to…

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  A Practice Aid for Auditors: Fraud Interviews – An Inquiry Guide

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …practice aid designed to help the audit team to plan and tailor these fraud interviews as required by the international auditing standards. It in- cludes… …all the relevant topics to be covered with suggested questions. It is not meant to be used as a questionnaire, seeking answers to each question in… …monitor operating locations? How does it monitor these locations and what has it found? – Are there locations, business segments, activities or… …fraudulent financial reporting or misappropriation of assets? – Where in your organization would it be the easiest to commit and/or the hardest to detect… …how it believes the internal control structure serves to prevent and detect material misstatements due to fraud? If so, what was reported?… …controls through year-end adjustments or significant unusual transactions? – Does internal audit monitor operating locations? How does it monitor these… …locations and what has it found? – Is internal audit concerned about the integrity (as it may relate to fraudulent financial reporting or misappropriation… …Officer / Chief Ethics Officer – Has the company established an ethics code? If so, how was it introduced? Is it a helpful guidance on ethical… …dilemmas? Does it cover international dimensions? How openly are ethical issues discussed? Is the process of communication effective? – What… …company’s IT internal control? How do you believe the IT internal control structure serves to prevent or detect material misstatements due to fraud? Please…

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  Case 39: Seibu Railway (Japan, 2004)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …than God: suspected Tsutsumi arrested.” Troubles began in October 2004 when it emerged that Seibu Railway had falsified shareholder information in… …Stock Exchange. The scandal deepened after it was found that from August through October 2004, Kokudo sold some of its shares in Seibu Railway… …without telling buyers that the railway firm’s stock ownership conditions made it subject to delisting. Tsutsumi and other Kokudo executives privately… …Holdings, among others. (Shiseido, e.g., said it had bought the Seibu shares only due to its “long-term business relationship” with Kokudo.) Besides… …lists of shareholders to make it look as if the company was more widely held than it actually was. As Kokudo’s largest shareholder, he hid the extent of… …financial statements to show that Mr. Tsutsumi and Kokudo owned most of Seibu, not just a minority stake. The scandal also took a high human toll: it… …that it deeply regretted the recent developments. “We’ll do our best to become a transparent company which can be trusted,” it said. The company was… …to protect inves- tors with greater transparency. The content of J-SOX is not entirely the same as that of US-SOX, but it is similar to sections 302…

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  Case 28: EM.TV (Germany, 2000)

  Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann, Dr. Stefan Hofmann

  …. When the company went public in 1997, it still had a tiny EUR 15 million in annual sales. It was one of the first companies to join the “Neuer Markt”… …and Americans wouldn’t have taken the company seriously. And Haffa was one of the most promi- nent examples of entrepreneurs in Germany who struck it… …. But in its chosen niche, cartoons and other children’s programming, it was already much bigger than its competitors. EM.TV controlled about one-third… …world of entertainment. Haffa showed that his prized German programs could make it everywhere else on the Continent. For example, the hit cartoon… …early 2000, shortly after a capital increase, EM.TV started an acquisition spree. For example, in February 2000, it acquired the Jim Henson Company… …forecast.” Haffa added that he would have never expected that it would be possible to be charged in a criminal court. In pleading for their acquittal… …was not executed till autumn. Kirch told the court that he had verbally agreed to the deal in mid-June 2000, and that he considered it to be “a fully… …jail sentence, but they did obtain a crimi- nal fine of EUR 1.2 million for Thomas Haffa and EUR 240,000 for Florian Haffa. It was important for the…

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