Wmi Financial Fraud Essay

The Enron and WorldCom scandals were arguably the incidents that permanently changed the procedures for accounting controls. In response to these incidents, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was passed. Once the knowledge of these scandals was made public, a number of subsequent accounting scandals were discovered in public companies such as Tyco International, HealthSouth, and American Insurance Group. In addition, a then-employee-owned company, Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, Inc. (dba PBS&J, now known as “Atkins North America, Inc.”), was also hit by a similar accounting scandal. Henceforth, a case study of PBS&J is presented where we will examine the fraudulent transactions that

An implicit theme of this case that I want students to recognize is the contrast between the persistent and vigorous efforts of David Sokol to “get to the bottom” of the suspicious items he uncovered in JWP’s accounting records versus what Judge William Conner referred to as the “spinelessness” of JWP’s auditors. The JWP audits were similar to most problem audits in that the auditors encountered numerous red flags and questionable entries in the client’s accounting records but, for whatever reason, apparently failed to thoroughly investigate those items. On the other hand, Sokol refused to be deterred in his investigation of the troubling accounting issues that he discovered. The relationships that existed between members of JWP’s accounting staff and the Ernst & Young audit team apparently influenced the outcome of the JWP audits. Of course, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

In addition, associated with the misapplication of accounting methods, the financial industry has been plagued with one disaster after another involving numerous scandals from top leading American companies. Consequently, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 compromising eleven sections that are generated to insure the responsibilities of the company’s managers and executives. This act identifies criminal penalties for particular unethical practices and currently has new policies that a corporation must follow in their financial reporting. The following examples describe some of biggest accounting methods as a result of the greed and the outrage of the ethical and financial misconduct by the senior management of public corporations.

Fraudulent financial reporting is one form of corporate corruption and may involve the manipulation of the documents used to record accounting transactions, the misrepresentation of accounting events or transactions, or the intentional misapplication of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) (Crumbley, Heitger, and Smith, 2013). Examples of fraudulent schemes befitting of this category abound and usually involve financial statement items that have been misclassified, omitted, overstated, undervalued, or prematurely recognized. One case involving CEO Bill Smith of Moonstay

The amount listed is the enrollment agreement was 10,020.00 which gives a difference of :

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

In 1998, an angry shareholder who described themselves as “fleeced shareholder” had e-mailed auditors and financial regulators questioning how HealthSouth was cooking their books. It is the date and detail in the e-mail that proves the most frightening. The e-mail displays that the fraud should have been caught long before it was uncovered. Unlike most investors, it was evident that this person had a background in accounting and raised legitimate concerns. Ernst & Young admitted to receiving this email in November of 1998. However, Ernst & Young felt the questions raised by the anonymous writer did not affect the presentation of the financial statements. Moreover, a former bookkeeper of HealthSouth, Michael Vines, also e-mailed Ernst & Young about specific area of fraud. His background qualified for his email to be considered worthy evidence. Nevertheless, Ernst & Young claimed that the accounting practices being question were

Phar-Mor, Inc was a thriving discount grocery store in the late 1980’s. Phar-Mor was moving product quickly but profit margins were not significant enough to pay the bills. By the early 1990’s, Phar-Mor declared bankruptcy due to fraudulent financial reporting and misappropriation of assets, making it one of the largest frauds in U.S. history. Below, we will use auditing standard AU 316.85 Appendix A in conjunction with the video “How to Steal $500 million” to analyze how incentives/pressures, opportunities, and attitudes/rationalizations allowed for fraud to start and continue at Phar-Mor.

Throughout the past several years major corporate scandals have rocked the economy and hurt investor confidence. The largest bankruptcies in history have resulted from greedy executives that “cook the books” to gain the numbers they want. These scandals typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of assets or underreporting of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations (Medura 1-3). In response to the increasing number of scandals the US government amended the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 to mitigate these problems. Sarbanes Oxley has extensive

In this article, Bobbie Jean Donnelly was a fraudster who used Travel and Expense reimbursements to defraud her company. Donnelly figured out how to manipulate her travel and expense reimbursements to eventually defraud her company of about $275,000. Had her company had proper controls in place for travel and expense reimbursements, wouldn’t have occurred to this magnitude.

While evaluating Apollo Shoes, there are some areas of concern that are potential fraud schemes. Fraud can lead to the entire collapse of a company if not corrected, and will also affect share value and investor confidence. This paper provides an overview of the process of investigation along with recommendations for the company.

This would be led largely by the enormous profitability experienced by swelling corporate entities and multinational conglomerates. And at the height of this period of economic dynamism, it did appear that these corporate entities were leading the charge toward a new national prosperity. Sadly, the decade immediately thereafter would prove much of this unbridled success to be manufactured and much of the profit to be totally false. Faulty accounting practices would be revealed as a most insidious culprit as a mountain of corporate scandals became apparent in the early 2000s. Certainly, none of these accounting scandals was quite as visible as the collapse of Enron and its accounting partner, Arthur Andersen. The events of 2002 would begin the uncovering of a world of malfeasant practices and would demonstrate the need for far greater transparent, oversight and legislative intervention. The discussion here considers the accounting system at Enron and how this produced an environment where fraud, embezzlement and deception were a part of the company culture.

Enron conducted several fraudulent record keeping practices to keep mounting debt off their financial statements. Initially, Enron kept complex financial statements that were confusing to both its shareholders and analysts. This was the first step to cover-up and misinterpret its debt and earnings. However, as Enron’s practice grew and became more involved, Jeffrey Skilling pressured other Enron executives to “…create off-balance-sheet vehicles, complex financing structures, and deals so bewildering that few people could understand them.” (Elkind and

Waste Management, Inc. (WMI) is a recycling waste company that was committed accounting fraud in the 1990s. According to the article “Accounting Firm to Pay a Big Fine” by Floyd Norris, WMI established a financial statement with their earnings goals to attract investors (2001). According to the litigation release number 17435 “Waste Management, Inc. Founder and Five Other Former Top Officers Sued for Massive Earnings Management Fraud” by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company’s top management understated the operating expenses and overstated company’s revenue during a six-year period to increase their income (2002). The fraud lasted over five years due to the slow ethical action and collusion of Arthur Andersen LLP, the auditors of WMI (SEC, 2002).

A business can not work out without an account system, which includes internal. Internal controls are used by companies to make sure financial information is accurate and valid. Strong internal controls are signs of a financially healthy company and protect the company’s integrity. Strong internal controls can also increase a company’s profitability. There are several types of internal controls that companies used to protect themselves such as: Segregation of duties, asset purchases, supervisor review, internal audits and adequate documents and records. This paper will discuss several topics from a case study about And the Fraud