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欺诈的结构和发展是如何进化
这之间有一个微妙分际，公众认为公司的责任有关欺诈和审计人员。在穆罕默德Hemraj的文章中，由于误导财务报表，当外部审计人员被指控为欺诈行为时，似乎认为管理有一个更大的责任。不过,他也认为,审计师作为担保人,应该负责他们的交付。因此,防止欺诈的发生一般推断的责任管理。外部审计师更参与评估欺诈严重篡改财务报表时的管理。 这些类型的欺诈行为越来越难以发现。然而,当财务报表在实质上被重大错报,顺利地认为审计师,审计成为附属的欺诈行为。审计人员不仅要评估管理,但也有人谁拥有足够的访问操纵财务报表的结果。审计师,曾发现欺诈行为,是基于惊人的协调多个员工,现在发现欺诈浓缩的人或一小群人协助下一个复杂的计算机网络。 When fraudulent activity is discovered within the lines of the financial statements of a firm, two main groups are automatically suspected: management and the external audit team. Lately, the structure and development of fraud has evolved. The control of the numbers reported relies heavily on the integrity of the company's technology, its settings and its controls within the organization. On top of that, auditors have to cope with false declarations from management. We will not look into the intricacies of the internal control for IT, but internal auditors and management have to establish a configuration that will reduce the inherent audit risk and the control risk. There is a thin line between what the public considers to be the responsibility of the company concerning fraud and that of the auditors. In his article, Mohammed Hemraj, seems to think that management has a greater responsibility than external auditors when it comes to being accused for fraudulent actions resulting in misleading financial statements. He also thinks, though, that auditors are acting as a guarantor and should be responsible for what they have delivered. Thus, preventing the occurrence of fraud in general infers the responsibility of management. External auditors are more involved in the assessment of fraud when financial statements are materially tampered with by management. These types of fraud become increasingly difficult to discover. Yet, when financial statements are materially misstated and have been favorably opined by the auditors, the audit becomes an accessory to the fraudulent act. Auditors not only have to evaluate management but, also anyone who possesses enough access to manipulate the financial statements results. Auditors, who once had to discover frauds that used to be based on the amazing coordination of multiple employees, now find fraud condensed into the hands of one person or a small group of people assisted by a complex network of computers. Technology has its benefits and disadvantages in the world of auditing financial statements. The challenge faced in the audit practice today is the inquisitive mind of the public, which has instant access to most financial statements. Therefore, we can ask: What are the methods used by the audit team to counter the malicious consequences of management fraud? Then, how can the auditor ensure that the general public understands their role? Finally, should auditors be automatically accused when a reviewed fraudulent financial statement is discovered?
Vikram, one of the auditors interviewed, supports the textbooks and added that auditors will follow procedures to uncover material [3] misstatements. He appended: "a€| that does not mean that auditors should not be accountable for other types of errors that may or may not lead to financial fraud." Thus, audit firms will follow the strict rules of the audit practice, and require that the auditors acquire a certain level of education, knowledge, and experience before getting deeply involved in a project. But, it is clear that all these processes and guidelines are not sufficient enough to prevent auditors from being accused by the general public.
Confusion tends to force individuals to search for better ways to classify and categorize. It is sometimes referred as stereotyping. According to the online etymology dictionary: "[in 1850, stereotype was mostly about the] image perpetuated without change", then in 1922 it became a "preconceived and oversimplified notion of characteristics typical of a person or group." This stereotype of auditors also originates from different sets of unforgotten experiences. Everybody, in the United States at least, has been reminded of the immoral and unethical connection of Arthur Andersen (Audit Firm) [i] to major financial fraud cases [4] . Therefore, the public, with help from the media, infers that auditors are greatly responsible for the presence of all kinds of fraud within the financial affairs of a company. A great set of examples of major events of the era expressing financial fraud before the 2007-2010 crisis, would be Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco. As a result of them, major changes in the financial world emerged from the development and resolution of these cases. The most evident example is the adoption of SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 [ii] ). As mentioned before, "The common misconception relates to the public perception that the primary role of employing an auditor is to detect fraud" (Hemraj, 286). Most auditing textbooks and both our interviewees, Vikram Oak and Gregory Brown, agree that the auditor is mainly engaged in the detection of material misstatements present in all documents assembled during the audit review. Management or company directors, on their side, are responsible for the development of the business they operate. Besides the change in economic demand, their presence during the day-to-day activities gives them better control over the numbers resulting from the company's financials. While the client [5] , mostly the management team, represents the one setting the internal controls and ensuring that a moral and ethical environment exists; the client also hires the audit firm that ought to evaluate his financials and maybe all relevant evidence related to these numbers. The way the contract is structured may give the impression that the auditors are devotedly working for the top of the organization and the shareholders. This consideration happens because their independence from the client may be at risk when we know that their compensation is coming from the company that is being audited. In a sense, they are working with the audit committee for the board of directors. However, they are assurers who are providing a service. Vikram informs that the engagement contracts contain "stringent clauses" that should not be breached. Therefore, the contract determines auditors' and management's responsibility during the auditing period. A similar situation refers to car inspectors. The inspector offers you and the State the assurance about your car. He has to be independent and should let you know about any major issue with your car. He is getting paid by you. You hired him; however, he is not supposed to express favoritism. He will follow procedures and methods that will help him discover major issues. He may not discover every single problem, but if during the process he senses some issues with the car, he has to let you know about it, and ultimately let the state (the public) know about it. Your sticker will show it. You will decide to fix the problem or not, but you will have to suffer from the consequences. The inspector's task is to try to keep the road safe for all drivers.#p#分页标题#e# The auditors are surely hired by the client, and like the inspector, they have the obligation to do a diagnosis that may impact stakeholders' and banker's decisions. When a possible fraud source is discovered, the auditor has to be vigilant and stay independent, and report to the client; then, if no action is taken or the threat is material, they must report to the SEC and the public. Vikram mentioned that even if the budget is about to go bust, the auditors have the obligation to report to the client about their skepticism, and if the engagement ends without actions, the auditors will have to inform the public about their findings or doubts. The issue will stay in the auditors' notes from the task. However, even if action is taken, the auditors may judge it necessary to mention the concern to the public. This path results in an investigation. As an investigator Brown clarifies that investigation require a thorough review of the company's documents. Unlike the auditors, the investigators work directly with the council and the board of the audit committee and do not consider the aggregate; they investigate everything including and not limited to personal e-mails and personal files. They do not have to make public their review unless there is the presence of criminal activities such as "child pornography, etc."; "we do not express an opinion but we only present the factsa€|" (Brown). Gregory Brown asked himself if one day the audit service will not be like an investigation. However, some accounting firms have already armed themselves with a forensic accounting department, which main task is to investigate companies' financials. While management and its components, which are Marketing, Accounting, Finance, etc., will be the evidence keepers; auditors will focus on "proof, the support for financial statements and data. [a€|] Auditors, then, are often the final arbiters of proper accounting policies, which are adopted by the profession in order to improve the fair presentation of assets and earnings and to reduce the incidence of false and misleading financial information" (Wells, 85). A hassle in the audit job is the fact that the client is the one who possesses most of the information needed to perform the task. Gregory Brown thinks that in order to reach this hidden evidence, the auditors will send a letter for information request to management or the audit committee, but the investigator will just find the information himself. An investigation seems to be more powerful when it comes to request and access documents from the client. The auditor is limited in his review by the non - access to the crucial information held by the client; this may be a reason why they provide a "reasonable assurance" (Wells, 89). Even with all this argument and the concept of "reasonable assurance" the public still pushes the auditors to the front of the line of suspects when financials goes wrong. The close relationship with management, the past memorable events relating audit to financial fraud, the impact of fraud on the market and the financial world provoke the general public to develop what we have referred to before as a stereotype. Evidently, the public has granted itself the right to instantly accuse auditors when financial fraud events are reported in the media.
Besides the scrutiny of the numbers, the ease of getting information from a public corporation leaves less room for mistakes for auditors. The Internet, instant news, electronic devices, and other tools create this uncontrollable flow of information that will reach the stakeholders within seconds. Because of this, Vikram reinstated that the engagement contract will state "what and when the company can publicly declare information that can fluctuate the audit review." The rapid introduction of technology has forced each industry to adopt this efficient beneficial system. The world of accounting, like our society, noticed the impact of technology in its everyday activities. We have observed a quick infiltration of information technology in the business world's transactions and communication. Financial records were ready within seconds with less effort, time, and staff. Similar to any new improvement, technology is used in good and bad ways. Although it allows companies to be more efficient in the way they conduct business, it also gives anyone with the right access the unfortunate opportunity to manipulate the financial results of a firm. Barton Watson from the CyberNet Group scandal symbolizes how technology can be manipulated to create a world of illusion for the auditors. Barton Watson found a way to be part of the executive team of a corporation after being banned by the SEC. Before we tackle the CyberNet subject, let us introduce a premiere case in the matter of frauds with early forms of technology. We will review the ZZZZ Best Carpeting case where IT departments were nonexistent. Yet, the company used the early forms of technology on-hand to forge the numbers on the reported bank statement. This shows how critical the experience and the professional attitude (skepticism) of the auditor are for the completion of a correct audit. When referring to ZZZZ Best, Floyd Norris from the New York Times titled his article "Technology to Fool Auditors: From Colored Pens to Computer Scanners." The title works well with the case because a little bit before the time of ZZZZ Best Carpeting, in the1960's employees were used to fake documents. Different colored pens and different handwriting was needed to 'authenticate' the evidence. When ZZZZ Best was uncovered, the audit practice saw that technology could be their antagonist's weapon. The company used copiers, scanners, and other early forms of technology as a mean to trick the numbers that the auditors were relying on to state their opinion. Minkow, ZZZZ Best CEO, had the audit team accepted the numbers. All Minkow and his accomplices had to do is to scan real statements, 'white-out' some numbers, names and addresses and replace them with new ones, then copy the document to finally file it as final. At the time, the audit process and the due diligence methods were not rigorous enough or interesting in independent source confirmation. Most, not to say all, evidence came from the client. However, this does not excuse the auditors from not being more skeptical about the outrageous growth experienced by a carpeting company created by a 16 years old. Hence, if it is too good to be true, it probably is. The company was incredibly more profitable than any comparables, and the industry parameters could not support the numbers presented by ZZZZ Best. Another at the time assumption during that period is the fact that keen knowledge of the industry and the company's business were not a necessary to perform an audit. Ultimately, experience and skepticism had no reason to be priorities for the auditors' professionalism. In this situation, Norris raises a great point when ending his article: "[a€|] the technology needed to fool auditors was available to almost everyone." (Norris) Now that more technological tools are available to everyone, the world of auditors is populated with potential threats. Therein, we can also perceive an opportunity for the audit practice to use the same technology to improve their jobs. During the interview with Vikram, a sensitive question was raised: how do you manage to review all major evidence when they rely on technology? The answer is that auditing is a gradual process. According to Vikram, the audit firms have armed themselves with teams of specialists who will verify the numbers from the client system by testing the system itself. The Audit IT team of the firm will go in first to validate the integrity of the handling and usage of the client system by its people. The Audit IT will make sure that all changes, updates and authorizations are handled properly. Then, the auditors will come and work on their review. Overall, the due diligence is made by specialists, which give the audit teams more time to effectively perform their task. Auditing has definitely changed. The attitude that may also help is "the fact that public companies have to report quarterly, [therefore,] the audit team has a greater opportunity to discover misstatementsa€| because they are closer to the client's business" (Vikram). However, it is not enough as people still find a way to commit fraud. The more the audit practice is growing by having groups of professionals to complete the due diligence, the easier it becomes for one person to dupe auditors and manipulate results. Barton Watson represents a great example of this kind of situation. Barton Watson called a 911 dispatcher to confess his remorse and express his shame. This happened to be the major trigger that welled up the suspicious past of Mr. Watson. From an early age, he was infused by greed. According to his friend Cameron, Barton desired money and power. He often presented himself as Barton Watson III, even if there were neither a I nor a II. Moreover, everyone who has met him praises his intellect and smartness (Wright).#p#分页标题#e# The combination of a smart greedy guy and access to the right tools created a financial monster. Early in his career, Barton Watson was banned by the SEC from conducting any activities that can affect the decision and financial obligations of a company and its stakeholders. The agreement was recorded when "Mr. Barton Watson pleads guilty to one count of mail fraud in 1987 for scamming an investor while working at brokerage firm E.F. Hutton" (Wright, 8). This was not enough to stop the greedy beast (Barton Watson) that two years later joined a partner to form WS Services. In order to go under the radar, he assigned his wife as his proxy when it came to signatures, official records, and so on. The action does not look right to the partner but the smart Barton did not get caught; he did not raise any red flags. Gregory talking about the way auditor proceeds for their audit. Transactions may look right but there may be fraudulent activities affecting the statements. Buy and hold for example [6] Three years after, WS Services was incorporated and became Cyberco Holdings. The original partner left after sensing fraudulent activities. Barton and he signed an agreement, with the support of lawyers, which bound him from talking about the conflict. Moreover, Mr. Watson kept the company and its assets: tangibles and intangibles (Wright). Being in control of the system, Barton created an environment of fear and constant control around his employees. He purposely lied to the Hastings Public School when selling them refurbished computers instead of new ones. Other contracts were breached the same way. The consequences were that the company confronted lawsuits after lawsuits. Following the numbers, the company was worth 200 to 300 million dollars, on paper. An engineer confirmed that they could be only valued for 20 or 30 Million dollars. To support this assumption, a consultant said that he found nothing wrong about the business itself; however, "the company and its financials" were bizarre. Ellie Wood, one of the employees, informed VarBusiness that Barton Watson also enjoyed a lavish life and was not modest about it (Wright). Finally, it is only in 2004 that the FBI, which has been involved in multiple investigations on Mr. Barton Watson, caught up with him on his fraud. Knowing that CyberNet is incorporated, the financials were full of misstatements, the environment of work was unacceptable, prior cases brought to a major change in the financial world (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002), and more importantly that Mr. Barton Watson was restricted by the SEC from being part of the decision making of a company; we can ask ourselves where were the auditors? The American Greed version of the case from MSNBC mentioned that when the financial regulators inspected the firm and its business associates, the phones lines given to the regulators and auditors were redirected to an employee of Mr. Watson, letters of confirmations where also redirected to Mr. Barton incognito. However, auditors should be able to detect some issue in the background check of the client. They should better understand the business and the industry to react to certain anomalies in the way the company was progressing. They should sense a spendthrift pattern in the way Bartson ran his life. Finally, auditors could speculate where the authorizations are and approvals are coming from. Leaping to another level, Barton Watson (if needed III) shows to what degree technology and information can be manipulated not only to fool auditors, but also the SEC, the FBI, business partners, stakeholders, and so on. While ZZZZ Best case had to utilize a sizable workforce, pens, copiers and printers to commit fraud, in the CyberNet case we have encountered a smart man with greedy intension utilizing the right tools. The auditors are facing complex situations where finding the source of material misstatements may be nearly impossible. The consequence of these multiple fraud cases creates an environment where auditors have also more difficulties to dissociate themselves from the idea of fraud hunters. The general public recognizes the involvement of certain auditors and conceives that these guarantee providers are able to collude with the swindlers. This goes against the public's perception, which infers that auditors are obligated to detect the manifestation of any financial distortion within the company. Because when financial fraud is exposed, the auditors are always considered not to have done their job.
In addition, we have also witnessed the denial of involvement in fraudulent activities by certain executives when they stand in court. A great example of this circumstance is represented by Bernard J. Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom, who denies the knowledge of the operations that lead to the fraud. He even added that this is the reason why he hired accountants and auditors to do the job right. He strongly repelled the accusations of his CFO, Mr. Sullivan. Yet, what he forgot to mention was that he took great advantage of the situation and ultimately got involved in the embezzlement of WorldCom's funds. We can consider the situation as a great way to relate to all potential intricacies that auditors confront when they are being accused. It may occur that even their clients become schizophrenic for a moment and target the audit team. In this WorldCom case, everyone paid the price by disbursing heavy loads of cash. The accounting firm (Arthur Andersen) [iii] ended up paying close to 65 Million US dollars. This may not have been the best example, but accounting firms do pay a lot to avoid going to court. It is easier and more assuring for the accounting firms to settle with the people suing them. They run the risk of being accused by the stakeholders (mostly shareholders and lenders) for giving false guarantee on the correctness of the financial statements, which have permit the company to receive money from financial sources. They also run the risk of having their image and prestige destroyed in the business. However on the other side, the general public will often assume that if the accounting firms decide to pay off people for any lawsuit reason, it may be because they may have something to hide. The public, mostly in the US, does not really consider the fact that lawsuits require a lot of time and energy and that it may destroy the image of the firm The lawsuit also can potentially raise unwanted assumption that can lead to the disgrace or disappearance of the involved firms. Hence, it becomes very tricky for the accounting firm to make a decision like that when the judgment is at a certain risk level. When it reaches their risk level of loosing, most accounting firms will back out of the case and settle with the opponent. In conclusion, it does not matter if the denial comes from the executives, the fraud source, or the auditors (by avoiding confrontation in court), the outcome may badly hurt the public image of the accounting firm and the reputation of its employees. This inherent risk is something that audit firms, nowadays, assess with precaution. They evaluate the significant pressure to meet the numbers. When on site, the auditors will consider the potential lack of courage of employees to communicate the fraudulent activities - when they rely a lot on their job. More importantly, they make sure that the Board of Director and the audit committee understands adequately the company's business, financial situation and culture.
Joseph Wells wrote: "Auditors are increasingly being held responsible for ferreting out instances of management misdeeds, a task that they currently cannot or will not perform" (83). Why are they not doing it or cannot do it? First auditors face management as their first source of information. If management does not want to share "critical information" with the auditors, it may be possible that the auditors never become aware of the information. This will happen when no disturbing misstatements related to the evidence are discovered. If the information is not given to them and there is no link to it, they may never ask for corroborating evidences (Wells, 89-90). Relating to the CyberNet case, we have observed that Barton did not raise any suspicion because his wife was the one signing the official documents. Wells added that, according to Jack Robertson in Auditing, "[a€|], auditing is a "systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events to ascertain the degree of correspondence between the assertions and established criteria and communicating the results to the interested users" (Wells, 89).#p#分页标题#e# It is not the auditors' job to evaluate each and every procedures adopted by management to prevent frauds; this means that management has the major responsibility to discover and prevent employees' fraudulent actions. It becomes a riskier job for auditors when the reality shows that the people who are preparing the financial statements may consist of accountants. It exists so many different ways for an accountant to maneuver documentations and transactions related to the financial statements: the use of estimate accounts to manipulate income (e.g. Valuation allowances, Allowance for uncollectible accounts). They do not only know the rules and the financial system, but also can affect the statements by manipulating everyday's transactions. Auditors are being confronted by their counterparts. Because, of this situation, it is possible to join Roger Debreceny and said that it is a necessity for the auditors to provide a continuous audit service. Both the client and the auditors have to maintain this incessant action because of the easy access to the information by the public (336). We remember that Mohammed Hemraj refers to management as the police of the internal fraud not-concerning management itself, and the auditors as researchers of material misstatement and management misconducts. Therefore, the auditors' responsibility concerning fraud consists of monitoring and reporting. The auditor has responsibility to himself by Solution- education With the introduction of the Internet to the public, companies started to leverage the information world to excite potential shareholder on their numbers. While some the statements posted online are not opined yet, the public seems to look for someone to blame. On the line up we see auditors, management, and others. If the statement has been opined, the auditors are the only ones left on the stand to answer to the judge(s) and twelve of their fellows While fraud are moving from large number of resources need to fewer resources, the decision of who is in fault or not went from the court to the general public. Is the decision power falling in the hands of the people? Gregory Brown is "wondering if in the future the audit practice will not include investigation of the company as part of the process." However, he agrees that there are no actual solutions to: neither what the public will think is or should be the auditors' responsibility, nor how to prevent financial fraud from hurting the audit image (Brown).
Sources Interviews A senior associate working with the Systems and Process Assurance team (SPA) at PriceWaterhouse Coopers 5 years of experience with the group, which provides support to the audit teams in the execution of the financial audit, specifically the audit of the audit system that companies rely on for their financial statements. Oak, Vikram. Senior Associate, PriceWatehouse Coopers. Gregor Nicolas. Phone Interview. April 18, 2010 A manager working with the investigative consultants of the StoneTurn Group. 5 years of experience with the group, he offers comprehensive and integrated solutions to intricate financial challenges. in different areas such as: Forensic Accounting, Intellectual Property, and other Complex Business Litigation Brown, Gregory. Manager, StoneTurn Group. Gregor Nicolas. Phone Interview. April 28, 2010
Debreceny, Roger, and Glen L. Gray. "Financial Reporting on the Internet and the External Audit." The European Accounting Review 8.2 (1999): 335-50. Print. Hemraj, Mohammed B. "Preventing Corporate Scandals." Journal of Financial Crime 11.3 (2004): 268-76. Print. Norris, Floyd. "Technology to Fool Auditor: From Colored Pens to Computer Scanners." The New York Times [New York] 26 Dec. 2003, Late Edition (East Coast) ed., C1 sec.: 1-1. Print. Wells, Joseph T. "Accountancy and White-Collar Crime." SAGE, American Academy of Political and Social Science vol. 525: 83-94 Print.
Beck, Paul J., and Martin G. Wu. "Learning by Doing and Audit Quality." Contemporary Accounting Research 23.1 (2006): 1-30. Print. Cormier, Denis, and Pascale Lapointe. "To Assess and Detect." CA Magazine 138.9 (2005): 51-54. Print. Eichenwald, Kurt. "Auditor Gave assurances of Safeguards Against Fraud." The New York Times [New York] 9 Jul. 2002, Late Edition (East Coast) ed., C.5 sec.: 5-5. Print. Peterson, Bonita K. "Education as New Approach to Fighting Financial Crime in the USA." Journal of Financial Crime 11.3 (2004): 262-67. Print. Ramaswamy, Vinita, and John Leavins. "Continuous Auditing, Digital Analysis, and Benford's Law." Internal Auditing 22.4 (2007): 25-31. Print. Wright, Robert. "Dead on Arrival: The CyberNet Scandal." VARbusiness Report. Manhasset: Jul 11, 2005. Vol. 21.15 (2005): 22. Access on Proquest - Babson library eresource on April 1st, 2010 "Stereotype." Online Etymology Dictionary. Online version. Harper, Douglas. 2001-2010
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