The SEC's Case against California Micro Devices: A Lesson in Using Professional Skepticism and Obtaining Sufficient Appropriate Evidence

The company’s revenues were not growing fast enough to meet these targets, so defendants instead resorted to improperly eliminating and deferring current period expenses to inflate earnings. They employed a multitude of imp roper accounting practices to achieve this objective. Among other things; the complaint charges that defendants:

Stephen Richards’s actions were extremely serious; manipulating Computer Associates’ quarter end cutoff to align CA’s reported financial results with market expectations by violating the generally accepted accounting principles and their financial reporting responsibilities. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Richards with other CA executives extended CA’s fiscal quarter, “ instructed and allowed subordinates to negotiate and obtain contracts after quarter end while knowing, or recklessly disregarding the fact that, CA would improperly recognize the revenue from those contracts, and failed to alert CA’s Finance or Sales Accounting Department that CA salespersons

One of the main defenses E&Y took during the early stages of the HealthSouth suit was the fact that the SEC had no well-defined rules with regards to audit-related practices. Another defense was the mere fact that E&Y never faced a criminal indictment for the HealthSouth fraud. This was mainly due to the statute of limitations placed on securities fraud. It sets it at the earlier of (a) 2 years after the discovery of the facts constituting the violation or (2) 5 years after such violation. Thus, the DOJ was unable to file criminal charges against the firm because the partner on the audit (G. Marcus Neas) was “unaware” of the fraud in 1993.

The auditor must remember that all information collected during the audit needs to be sufficient enough to further the audit process. The information must not only possess the two qualities, relevance and reliability, but it should also test various assertions. For instance, in the audit of Walmart, the auditor should make an attempt to acquire information such as financial statements from the company’s bank, as opposed to acquiring the statements from Walmart’s management. Taking such crucial information from Walmart’s management will put the reliability of that information into question. It is possible that management may manipulate the financial statements, so that they are more appealing to the public and investors. Management may do things

The auditing firm Coopers & Lybrand was accused of failing to perform a proper GAAS audit. One strategy the auditors could have performed was to follow the trail of revenue vs expenses. The auditor should have notice large sums ($10 million) of revenue going into one particular expense (Suppliers/Inventory). Considering Phar-Mor filed that they lost money in fiscal year 1984 and 1985 and they never cleared

Overview of the Case: The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Mark D. Begelman misused proprietary information regarding the merger of Bluegreen Corporation with BFC Financial Corporation. Mr. Begelman allegedly learned of the acquisition through a network of professional connections known as the World Presidents’ Organization (Maglich). Members of this organization freely share non-public business information with other members in confidence; however, Mr. Begelman allegedly did not abide by the organization’s mandate of secrecy and leveraged private information into a lucrative security transaction. As stated in the summary of the case by the SEC, “Mark D. Begelman, a member of the World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”), abused

) There was a lack of adequate cut-off procedures to ensure the timely recording of certain period-end accruals. This resulted in an audit adjustment of $3,578,000. The benchmark for overall materiality is $3,508,000, I would consider the audit adjustment of $3,578,000 a material misstatement. Control environment, principle 2 the board of directors and management exercise oversight of development and performance of internal controls. Due to the severity and material weakness of lack of adequate cutoff procedures to ensure timely recording of period end accruals. Management and the board of directors should evaluate performance of internal control activities including adherence to standards of conduct and expected levels of competence. In

On May 26, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in SEC v. Graham, No. 14-13562 (11th Cir. May 26, 2016), reached an important decision. The court extended the reach of 28 U.S.C. § 2462, the five-year statute of limitations for “any civil fine, penalty, or forfeiture” applicable to enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The court held that SEC enforcement actions for declaratory relief and disgorgement were subject to the five-year statute of limitations. The Eleventh Circuit built its ruling on top of a decision by the Supreme Court, Gabelli v. SEC, 133 S. Ct. 1216 (2013), which held that 28 U.S.C. § 2462 applied to SEC civil penalty actions.

Please note that although the testing of the bank reconciliation provides further audit evidence over management’s

Access the "Litigation" section of the SEC's website at www.sec.gov/litigation.shtml. Click on "Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases." Click on "AAER-3234" filed January 20, 2011. Read the release and the related SEC Complaint. Summarize the release and complaint in 2-3 pages (12-point, double spaced).

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate (Louwers & Reynolds, 2007). We believe that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

1. There are numerous differences between performing a review and actual audit on the financial statements, but the major one is that the review does not contemplate obtaining an understanding of internal control structure. Also, a review does not assess control risk, tests of accounting records and responses to inquiries by obtaining corroborating evidence through inspection, observation or any other audit procedure. It can point out significant matters of the financial statements but does not provide assurance of their accuracy. The issue with ZZZZ Best case is that the auditors review was not sufficient enough to review any misstatements on the financial statements. Ernst & Whinney never questioned the internal control, reviewed

[pic]s a senior in a professional services firm, you have been assigned to plan the financial statement audit of a private company named Toy Central Corporation (TCC). In addition, the partner on the engagement has asked you to identify business risks that could adversely affect TCC’s sustained profitability, so that they can be brought to the attention of the company’s board of directors. These tasks will require you to draw on your knowledge of supply chain management, marketing, internal controls, audit assertions, and financial accounting.

A review and an audit report are both a form of an attestation engagement. A Review, however, is less in scope so it provides a moderate level of assurance on the financial statements. It is considered a “sniff” of an audit, which comparatively provides reasonable assurance that no material misstatements occurred. Since a review deals with a limited scope, it does not provide the basis for expressing an opinion on the presentation of the

d. “The auditor's reliance on substantive tests to achieve an audit objective related to a particular assertion may be derived from tests of details, from analytical procedures, or from a combination of both. The decision about which procedure or procedures to use to achieve a particular audit objective is based on the auditor's judgment on the expected effectiveness and efficiency of the available procedures. For significant risks of material misstatement, it is unlikely that audit evidence obtained from substantive analytical procedures alone will be sufficient (PCAOB, AS 2305.09).”