Views on the Satyam fraud case: Before writing this report, I read some articles from The Economic Times, The Times of India, The Hindu and a blog by Shweta Rajpal. In this report, I have tried to figure out what the scam is all about, how it happened, why it was done and the aftermath, exploring corporate governance issues simultaneously. The ‘What’ of the scam: The Satyam scam has been as the Enron scam of India. So one can only imagine the magnitude of wrongdoing and deception. The downfall of Raju began in Dec 08 when Satyam attempted to acquire two companies controlled by his sons - Maytas (the syllables of the word ‘Satyam’ used backwards) Properties and Maytas Infra - for 1.6 billion dollars in order to compensate for the holes …show more content…
Yet Raju was able to steer the fabricated accounts through his board members for Six years! At times, the company was holding excessive cash, as per the books. This should have invited questions by board members. In particular, Independent Directors, who are appointed by shareholders at the behest of the board, are selected on the basis of their reputation, knowledge, and wisdom. They are the first defense of minority shareholders. Generally they bring specialized expertise. Independent directors have to meet standards set by stock exchanges too. The Indian Government specifically delineates the role of independent directors in safeguarding the interests of the organization and the shareholders. An independent director would normally assume that audited accounts have been rigorously examined. This is more so when an internationally credible firm- like Pricewaterhouse Coopers- has audited the numbers. But, they need to still ask the right questions and probe, afterall that is what they are there for! * The Regulators: Many experts suggest that if there is a sudden spurt in insider trading in any company, the regulator should the sound alarm bell. In this case the SEBI failed to discharge this job and could not trace what was going on in Satyam. The Corporate Governance issues that emerged: * Why would anyone want to divert funds into another subsidiary or a company in which the
Based on the case, company poor accounting system creates opportunities for Mr Praveet to commit fraud because the information on trade register was authorized and managed by Mr Praveet. There is no other personnel that in charge of the authorization of the fund such as approval of the fund from higher authority of the financial manager, Mr Mehta. Good accounting information system able to provide accurate and timely information, but this does not appear in Taj Mahal Investment Company. The accounting system is important for prevention and detection of fraud and it did not alarm an alert to the company about the losses in investment until when Mr Praveet had left the company. So, Mr Praveet easily commits fraud without notice by the
In the process of Satyam Scandal, there are several governance principles involved a few key components.
The scandal revealed in 2009 when founder-chairman of Satyam Computers Mr. Ramalinga Raju makes a clean breast that the company’s accounts were tampered with and he disclosed a Rs.7,000-crore accounting fraud in the balance sheets.
These frauds essentially amount to trickery; the perpetrator fools the company into handing over its money.
Discuss the impact to the company or brand as a result of the fraudulent activity.
At last, it was too late for the CEO, auditors, creditors, suppliers and public to realize the fraud, while the loss was so large and the lies lasted so long, which was really hard for them to prevent. They also could not admit that they were lying, it would lead to bankrupt. Finally, the internal administrators could not control it anymore and no one kept confidence on the company.
bribery payments. The SEC found these actions to be in violation of the disclosure regulations and that the actions thereby denied the public material information regarding the integrity of management and the use of corporate funds.
With the basic understanding of the definitions and fraud and corruption in a nutshell, we can then finally move on to the literature review whereby we explain the apparent existence of fraud and corruption in Malaysia and how it has effected the Malaysian
The case was analysed by multiple research accountants and the reason behind it was the intention of Scrushy to make the investor content with the financial abilities of the company along with obtaining more and more investment without any optimum yield. Scrushy was charged with the accounting fraud in 2003 of March(Beam & Warner, 2009, p.56)., more reasons were unfolded by the SEA-Securities Exchange Act about Scrushy and his posting of the company’s large loss in order to achieve a high stock sell.
Earning management or creative accounting is referred to the manipulation or misrepresentation of the company’s financial earnings in order to achieve stable and positive financial position. This was achieve through directly or indirectly use of the accounting methods. Even though the manipulation may follow all the accounting standards and laws, they may go opposite of what the standards and laws were originally trying to establish. Therefore, earning management is often considered materially misleading and referred to a fraudulent activity.
According to the journal article An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases by Kristin Kennedy we see the development of WorldCom and
The course Fraudulent Financial Reporting and Corporate Governance of prof. Hermanson is the great oversight of financial reporting and governance issues. The students are able to understand the roles of the board of director and board committees, the critique research on fraudulent financial reporting and the cycle of fraud through real fraud cases over the world. Indeed, I recognize the importance of corporate management over financial reporting. The three main things I learned from this class is understanding of the effect of board of directors on fraud decisions, elements of fraud, and the importance of fraudulent accounting to accountants and auditors
According to ICAEW, auditor independence mainly refers to the independence of the external auditor from parties that have an interest in the financial statements of the business being audited. It requires having both integrity and an objective manner to the auditing process. In order for the concept to be deemed effective the auditor needs to carry out their work freely. One of the main purposes of auditing is to increase credibility of the entity’s’ financial statements, as they have expressed their own professional opinion on the truth and fair view in accordance with the proper accounting standards used. This is only possible if the audit is made with reasonable assurance that it has come from an independent source and has not been influenced by other parties, such as managers, directors or by conflict of interest.
The company’s lack of transparency in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its demise
The modern university educationis focused primarily on providing extensive information and data, the sole purpose of which is toequip students to earn their livelihood. Thus, higher aspects of education, such as personality development, value inculcation, and self discovery are often ignored. With the focus purely on materialistic achievements, people are tempted to employ unfair means to achieve the desired object. This mentality, if extended further, can easily lead one to cheat and subsequently graduate into white collar crimes, such as fraud, forgery and false pretences. The financial impact of such crimes has been in the range of billions of dollars, according to the Internationsl Symposium of Crime. The recent Satyam Scam is only one among the many such examples.