Corporate Fraud Essays (Examples)

John Mackey said, "Under an alias to avoid having his comments associated with the Company and to avoid others placing too much emphasis on his remarks." He used the pseudonym ahodeb after his wife Deborah. (Wikipedia).

AHODEB

John Mackey posted various comments on Yahoo Finance stock forums until last August with the username ahodeb, after his wife Deborah. He wrote positive things about Whole Foods financial results and his gains on the stock and knocking out Wild Oats Markets Inc. The company is still trying to acquire Wild Oats Markets Inc. Following are few posts written by John Mackey;

Whole Foods Market Inc.

On November 29, 2000 he posted, "Obviously WFMI is no Wal-Mart (not yet anyway!)." Criticizing about the competitor Sunflower which is also an organic store, "Sunflower isn't too impressive. These guys won't hurt Whole Foods. Wait and see." He also predicted about the Whole Foods on June…

American Corporate Fraud

This new century began with great expectations. However, just as the door of the 21st century opened, September 11th shocked the world and bruised the economy. Then, followed the bankruptcy and corporate scandals of some of America's major corporations. One such Fortune 500 company that fell at the new century's threshold was Enron, one of the world's leading energy companies. Once hailed as the most promising corporation in the nited States, Enron is now in bankruptcy and under federal investigation for fraudulent accounting practices. The depths of its unethical practices and the aftermath of its collapse are still unfolding day by day.

Founded in 1985, Enron began as an energy company, shipping natural gas through pipelines. In 1989, Enron expanded into the natural gas commodities market, basically betting on future gas prices. By 1994, Enron was trading electricity contracts, eventually becoming the largest electricity trader in the…

Tesco’s Fraud in the Accounting Information System

The Accounting Information Systems (AIS) plays a central part in the business computing structure of any organization. AIS deals with the classification, collection, storage, monitoring, and conversion of the company’s data into information utilized for internal control and reporting (Smith, 2016). Once an organization adopts an Accounting Information System, they can keep accurate records, and manage the assets of the organizations properly. The management utilizes AIS to guarantee that there are suitable access and separation of duty controls. With such restrictions, the administration can hold the employees responsible for their interaction with the system. This paper delves into how the components and functions of Tesco’s accounting information system contributed to the 2014 fraud scandal.

Tesco’s Fraud Scandal

Tesco is popular grocery retailer with its head office in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, U.K. (Colson, 2017). Globally, it is ranked at position nine regarding revenues…

Corporate governance of finances in major corporations has been a major controversy during the recent recession. The scandal at Satyam is indicative of problems across the board, from CEOS, to executive boards, to independent auditors and even accounting firms such as Price Waterhouse. In this essay, the author will consider the unique problems presented in a globalised market where faith in the market is essential for international trade to function.

When the CEO assumes the entire responsibility in a corporate governance fiasco absolving everyone else (family members, board of directors, independent directors and other top management people), how should the regulatory authorities and the government proceed against the CEO who has confessed and other people who were absolved by him. Critically evaluate especially from the point-of-view of absolving all the others including the top management, board of directors and the family members, from any of the accumulated corporate wrongdoings.

What…

(Roy, 2006)

In these cases, others working in those fields are the only ones who have the ability to conduct quality check to verify instances of possible fraud. Qualified doctors can analyze the work of other doctors to attest their medical malpractice. An honest lawyer who deals with related issues can understand how a fellow lawyer could have used deceitful methods to cheat a client off his money. Proficient lecturers can set good examples for students to bring out the incompetency of others. In the managerial level, well qualified professionals are the only ones who are smart enough to figure out the plots hatched by higher executives in order to use the shareholder money for personal needs. Scams in the political sector can only be challenged by opposing political parties or powerful entities like the court. The media is highly potent in this regard as they present malpractices in front…

cross examine the accounting fraud scandal that took place at Xerox, the main intention of this analysis is to know the causes and the effects of the scandal as well as the need of a good practice in business ethics, corporate management and the general oversight. Xerox was able to utilize a creative technique of accounting to give false presentation of its assets and liabilities, they also deceive the investors and lastly they were able to inflate their socks. The main players of the scandal were the chairman, CEO and other high ranking officials who took the advantage and enriched themselves (Gara, D. 2004). The high ranked officials made away millions of shillings at the expense of the stakeholders. This scandal highlighted the need for accountability and ethics in the governance of finance as well as corporate.

The analysis also aims to examine the strategic mistakes that led the Xerox…

Corporate fraud as a dishonest activity for organizations that is considered as white collar crime has serious legal implications. Though it can be difficult to detect and catch, it is important to prevent it by creating effective and efficient policies for the organizations that ensure an efficient system of checks and balances exists in the organization for its physical and fiscal security. Whenever fraud happens in a company or organization, it often takes the form of hiding sources of revenue, overstating expenses or growth, or disguising payments made to individuals in the company. Often, fraudulent activities within the organization are complex in nature and have a gross impact on the financial nature of the organization. It is usually perpetrated by the company management and other employees are often unaware of these fraudulent activities (Mele, 2005).

Corporate fraud, as difficult as it is to prevent, often has a ripple effect whereby…

PENALTIES - CIVIL & CIMINAL

There are statutes that impose penalties both civil and criminal for government contractors who commit fraud, waste or abuse. Some of those statutes are as follows:

False Claims Act;

False Statements Act;

Forfeiture Statute;

Anti-Kickback Act

Bribery and Gratuities statutes;

Mail and Wire Fraud statutes; and the Public Integrity Act and recent legislative initiatives to strengthen criminal penalties for violations of conflict of interest laws. (Peckar & Abramson, 2007)

The government has the right to audit the records of the contractor for up to three years following a contract for the government being completed. Companies with contracts exceeding $5 million are required to: (1) post a fraud hotline poster; (2) establish a written code of ethics; (3) establish an employee ethics and compliance training program; and (4) establish an internal control system. (New ule for Government Contractors, nd)

SUMMAY & CONCLUSION

The Corporate Compliance Plan…

"hen Congress returned in 1934 to complete the federal disclosure tapestry, it created express private causes of action for misleading reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of the newly enacted continuous disclosure requirements, (3) provided private recoveries for market manipulation, (4) and authorized suits on behalf of reporting companies for short-swing profits garnered by certain insiders (Cox, Thomas, and Kiku, 2003)."

The creation of the SEC as a government body for oversight arose out a recognition by the courts that private action was not enough to protect investors and consumers from the materially misleading representations of corporate America (Cox, Thomas, and Kiku, 2003). Since its creation, however, the numerous laws and regulations that have come to frame the world of corporate governance have exceeded the limits of manageable governance. By the time the SEC has identified a problem, pursued investigation of the corporate representations of…

Align. Make your solutions part of an overall email security solutions.

Every email security solution should align with the needs of every department in an organization. For instance, for anti-fraud solution, there can be an option that records a trail of fraudulent emails that can be used a technical department to keep track of fraud attacks. Or, there can also be an option that sends out alerts and warnings to users about possible causes of email security risks.

Inform. Increase communication and awareness on email security measures and procedures.

Let the employees know the causes and consequences of risks that email vulnerabilities provide. Also, an increased awareness on the measures and procedures which employees can take to strengthen email security can minimize threats to sensitive information. Thus, adding to a guarantee of having secured email system.

Why Corporate Customers Should Outsource Their Email?

Outsourcing emails has been one of the…

The stock was trading on pink sheets at $0.165 per share at the end of April 2003" (8).

As noted above, one of the key factors involved in what happened at HealthSouth was the enormous pressure to perform in the increasingly competitive for-profit healthcare industry, pressure that directly affected the decisions that were made concerning the types of accounting practices that were needed to "deliver the goods," at least on paper. Although absent from the foregoing list, Scrushy's name appears time and again in the investigation that followed. According to Jennings, "Like Enron, orldCom, and Tyco, HealthSouth placed tremendous pressure on employees to 'meet the numbers.' In April 1998, CEO Richard Scrushy told analysts that HealthSouth had matched or beat earnings estimates for 47 quarters in a row" (8). The role played by Scrushy in engineering the corporate culture that would allow these estimates to be reported with a straight…

This strategy was successful for some time but when WorldCom tried to acquire MCI (a company with two times more revenues than WorldCom), the binge of acquisitions was ended due to objections from antitrust and other stakeholders.

WorldCom's strategy was to display revenues and profits in extremely positive basket; for which the company had to make false misstatements in their accounting records. I think, it was the social and ethical responsibility of WorldCom to avoid misinterpretations in their financial statements and to show clear picture of the company to its stakeholders.

This strategy resulted in expansion of WorldCom through acquisitions and the expansion became so huge that the management of WorldCom was unable to handle the business. The debt of the company touched $41billion with $11billion of accounting frauds and misinterpretations. These all were the fruits of strategies implemented by Ebber just to display a very sound and positive picture…

Corporate governance, a concept which has succeeded in attracting a lot of public interest due to its perceived importance for the corporations' and society' economic health in general has been accorded several definitions. Shleifer and Vishny (737) defined corporate governance as a concept that deals with the manner in which suppliers of various financial services to corporations somehow assure themselves of getting some good return on their investment. OECD (1999) on the other hand defines corporate governance as a system by which various corporations are effectively directed as well as controlled. The structure of corporate governance specifies the form of distribution of rights as well as responsibilities among various different participants in a given corporation. The participants include the board of directors, managers, stakeholders as well as the shareholders. The corporate governance structure lays down the rules as well as procedures to be used for making various decisions on the…

Sutherland was quite critical of why some crimes were defined as deviant, while society appears more tolerant of other transgressions. For example, individual theft is seen as causing great harm, while the harm caused by illegal pollution and the dissemination of hazardous waste are hardly recognized. In 2002, for example, the Carnival Company, a Florida-based cruise company which operates 40 ships, was convicted of falsifying its oil record books. The company under-reported the levels of oil in the bilge water it discharged. The higher levels of oil threatened ocean life. To avoid prosecution, Carnival agreed to pay $18 million in fines (Ferro 2003).

Though Carnival was guilty of wrongdoing, few members of the general public at the time would go so far as to define Carnival's actions as criminally deviant.

In summary, both functionalist and social labeling theories help to explain how corporate deviance are both defined and addressed in…

Ethically, the actions of Enron management were reprehensible. From a deontological perspective, they broke laws. From a consequentialist perspective, their actions resulted in significant financial losses for millions of people, job losses for thousands and a loss of public faith in the financial system.

The Enron scandal is perhaps the most egregious misuse of data in recent years. Data was manipulated and/or hidden from those whose job was to analyze the data. ide-ranging and catastrophic losses resulted from this misuse. Had the data been presented factually and honestly, the analysis that flowed from it would have benefited Enron's internal and external stakeholders. The company may have suffered in the short-term but would have been able to survive in the long-term.

orks Cited:

Thomas, Cathy Booth. (2002). Called to Account. Time Magazine. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,263006,00.html

Houston Chronicle: The Fall of Enron. (2001-2009). Houston Chronicle. Retrieved March 27, 2009…

Corporate Governance

As some queries about corporate governance were there ever since 1932 - the period of erle and Means, the expression of the concept of Corporate Governance was not found in English vocabulary until 25 years ago. However, in the previous two decades, matters relating to corporate governance have gained importance in academic literature as well as in public policy deliberations. Corporate governance came to be acknowledged as being synonymous with takeovers, financial restructuring, and activities of institutional investor's during this part of the era. Corporate Governance is now at a turning point. Several budding and up-coming economies that are on the path of development have identified by now that excellent corporate governance is vital for sustainable economic development. Furthermore, a lot are on the lookout for a novel or appropriate standard for making it relevant for their particular internal situation. (erle and Means, 1932)

The last ten years…

ibliography

Larson, a. (2004, August). Piercing the corporate veil. http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/corporate_veil.html#2

Piercining the corporate veil. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

WorldCom (CEO Bernard Ebbers) supported by years of profitability arising from the deregulation of phone companies was a fast moving stock that was highly toted by stock specialists as a must buy, even while it was seriously hemorrhaging from bad and fraudulent business deals and its own shoddy accounting, cover ups and bad investment deals.

WorldCom quickly supplanted at&T as the favorite of many investors, based heavily on Grubman's recommendations. The investment world quickly sang WorldCom's praises as a result. A technology magazine, Network World, named it one of the ten most powerful companies, behind only Cisco and Microsoft. After listing its virtues, the magazine went on to conclude that, "MCI WorldCom will probably be a keeper on this list." 18 as for its investment virtues, Grubman claimed that it was a traditional "widows and orphans" stock, to be held for the long-term. Based partially upon his recommendations, Fortune listed…

Such problems are not overcome easily, but in time and with sustained efforts. To better understand my standpoint of defending the bailouts, consider what would have happened had the TAP never been implemented. All of the companies would have commenced bankruptcy procedures and the millions of workers they were employing would have been fired. At a first level, the state would have had to offer those former employees social aid. Then, the national purchasing power would have decreased even more, to impact the national demand and the national production. Also, the country's competitive position within the global market would have decreased dramatically. Overall then, while the bailouts may not have been fairly and efficiently allocated and while they did not revive the economy immediately, they did prevent it from taking an even more damaging turn.

eferences:

Haugen, D., 2010, Bailout Money Should Not Be Used to Pay Executive Bonuses, Detroit:…

Actions that warrant for boundary should be on a written document and be available to employees at all time. This system should also take care of verbal and nonverbal agreement of contract expenditure, and no cost approval beyond the budget unless being approved by senior management and financing unit

These boundaries must be revised on an annual basis and edited if necessary. When employees understand the core beliefs and boundary system, then they do not just worry about delivering the bottom line results. Instead, they will strive to deliver corporate objectives without crossing boundaries.

Diagnostic control system should also be employed into the company whereby, new processes and performance measurements must be developed for the following:

Unit occupancy rate: this strives to achieve economy of scale.

Internal auditing: There should be a team of internal auditor reporting to the accounting VP. This team must constantly review the transactions and ensuring…

IT Fraud

Evaluate the factors that add to corporate fraud

The business fraud can be credited to conditions emerging from deceptive monetary reporting and misappropriation of possessions. These conditions are 3 and all 3 features of the fraud triangle have to exist for fraud to take place. Management or staff members have to have the reward or pressure to dedicate fraud, see the opportunity emerge and have the ability to justify the occasion.

Incentive/Pressure

Management or perhaps others in the workforce will have benefits or conditions of pressure to carry out fraud. If the choice is made by management to publish illegal monetary statements, the most typical reason for this will be threat by financial, market or entity operating conditions to the monetary security and productivity of the business. Extreme pressure is put on management to satisfy the projection made by industry experts, internal company projections or to pay back…

ite Aid Fraud

Over the years, there have been numerous cases of financial fraud perpetuated within the organizational mainstream of major companies. Financial fraud is often a well-coordinated sort of white-collar crime that often -- but not always - requires complicity and collusion amongst financial accountants, top management and auditors. ite Aid came to the limelight after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it would be filing accounting fraud charges against the company in 2002

Meanwhile, the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania leveled similar criminal charges accusing former CFO Frank Bergonzi, former CEO Martin Grass and former Vice Chairman Franklin Brown of perpetuating an immense accounting fraud scheme

. Compounding the crisis, according to former ite Aid COO, Timothy Noonan, were years of legal coaching amongst staff and mid-level employees. As investigations ensued, evidence of fraudulent manipulation of accounts, corporate malfeasance, and financial overstatement…

WorldCom

Prior to the corporate financial scandal, WorldCom was one of the largest long distance telephone companies (euters, 2003). Initially headquartered in Mississippi it later moved to Virginia. The company grew fast by acquiring other companies such as MCI Communications in 1998 and UUNET technology in 1996. Other companies acquired included, Metromedia in 1992, esurgens Communications Group in 1993. In the course of this acquisition spree, WorldCom undertook two complex takeovers. The first was the 1998 acquisition of CompuServe from H& Block where it retained the network division, sold off the online service to American Online (AOL) and the second, the acquisition of Digex in 2001, and disposed of all Digex assets to Allegiance Telecom (Kaplan & Kiron, 2004). With these acquisitions, it gained a favorable reputation in the market as a company with a solid foundation.

Facts of the WorldCom Case

The WorldCom fraud case is one of the…

Business Fraud

In the wake of scandals such as Enron and others, corporate fraud still appears to be prevalent across the business world. The reasons for this can be many and varied, although greed and a sense of hubris appear to be two of the common role players. In other cases, desperation could also be a factor, where a business is in danger of failing and its owners or managers see little choice but to cheat or sing with the boat. In many of the fraud cases, questions regarding regulation also abound, where regulatory authorities appear to be unable to either identify fraudulent activity or to sufficiently monitor the actions of those involved. This appears to be at least partly the case as far as ussell Wasendorf Sr. is concerned, who recently confessed to have committed fraud as the owner of his brokerage for 20 years Huffstutter and Polansek, 2012).…

EU's Current Anti-Fraud Strategy

For some time now, the issue of fraud and corruption in public service has been an issue of concern. This has forced many organizations to establish strategies aimed at detecting and minimizing the occurrence of such fraudulent activities in areas under their jurisdiction. This paper discusses the strategic management concepts in the risk-based policing strategy coupled with the principles and importance involved in the enhancement of organisational performance. Complementary factors and organisational culture are components that facilitate and militate against strategic fraud and corruption. The paper established alternative and successful strategies dependent on the factors of willingness of groups and individuals and ways of accepting them. In turn, this is dependent on the people seeking change and an understanding of the organisation's culture. The following study identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) as a strategy used by the European Union in…

CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in this article discusses the fact that corporate responsibility is fledgling in protecting employees at Ealing Hospital. The case discusses instances when professionals lost their jobs when stepping forward to report others fur unethical conduct. There is evidence that the hospital has covered up several instances of fraud and attempted to remove those that reported wrongdoing. The Health Secretary, Stephen Dorrell has reported that an investigation will be conducted to review the actions against whistleblowers (Lakhani, 2011).

There are many health colleagues who have come to the aid of those facing unemployment and blacklisting as a result of stepping up. These health professionals are adamant in getting compensation and protection through NHS or the Strategic Health Alliance for histleblowers. That is health professionals willing to put themselves on the line to protect patients and expose gross neglect and waste of taxpayers money (Lakhani, 2011). One…

The other two cases looked at errors that were made deliberately by subsidiary management and, in both cases, were both quantitatively and qualitatively material.

Due to the fact that most fraud starts at the bottom, is it very important for executives to always be looking for things that do not appear to be right. Fiscal honesty is crucial in financial markets. It is essential that management quickly resolve any monetary issues that come up. Delay only compounds accounting indiscretions. The consequences to all concerned, the business, its investors and creditors, and administration, are that if things are left unattended they will only get worse.

There is no alternative to good systems of recordkeeping, controls, and oversight. Management cannot be distant and disinterested. Financial reports must be looked at and examined, not just amassed. Discrepancies must be rapidly resolved. Communication of accounting rules and measures must be apparent and timely. Doubts…

Corporate Social esponsibility

The purpose of this case study is close synopsis of the Enron case and its impact on consumers and corporate business practices alike. Prior to its collapse Enron had been named one of America's top 10 admired corporations, and its boards "was acclaimed one of the U.S.' best five" (eed, 2004). Throughout the 1990s the company experienced tremendous growth and profits exceeding $180 billion, employing more than 30,000 people worldwide (eed, 2004).

Enron collapsed however and went bankrupt, a process that "outraged and impacted stakeholders tremendously and resulted in numerous congressional investigations" (eed, 2004). The "implosion" of the company "wreaked havoc on accounting like no other case in American history; the collapse of the system called into question the adequacy of U.S. disclosure practices and the integrity of independent audit processes" (Thomas, 2002).

Overview of the Case

In October of 2001 Enron executives announced they were taking…

Article 3: Evaluation of high- and low- risk investment projects

Ispas, Constantin, Eduard Lovin, & Dana Tilina. (2009). Risk analysis in investment projects.

Annals of DAAAM & Proceedings. Retrieved October 23, 2010 at FindArticles.com http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7105/is_2009_Annual/ai_n53386583/

Accurately evaluating the technical, economic and social risk of a new investment project is critical. Common potential risks include errors in evaluating opportunity growth; errors in data-gathering; misevaluating the priority of the economic objective to be achieved, mis-projections of project scope (otherwise known as 'project creep'); and radical and unexpected changes in the economic environment. Evaluating risk is a multi-faceted process. It entails an understanding of the physical, functional, and staff required to realize the project; assessing vulnerabilities and possible remedies; risk adjustment; prioritizing on organizational risk hierarchies; making risk comparisons within the organization and globally; and appropriate use of risk matrices.

Article 4: Valuation of stock and stock portfolios

Lerzan, Aksoy, Bruce Cooil, Christopher…

Q1. How have accounting techniques changed in recent years? How do they resemble practices in Italy during the Renaissance?
According to McCrie (2016), one of the great innovations which emerged during the Renaissance was that of double-entry bookkeeping. This technique, still used today, records the organization’s assets in one column or book versus liabilities, or claims on those assets (p.252). The term “dual entry” came into practice given both records were listed in dual columns. Still, some substantial innovations have taken place since the early days of double-entry bookkeeping, most notably the advent of technology such as computers to compute assets and store data. The actual book of originally-recorded assets in real time now called a journal and the book which records the cumulative data is called a ledger. Debits and credits are the terms are now the preferred terms for assets and liabilities. But while terminology has changed and…

corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not you believe that the current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. Provide support for your answer.

Unethical behavior has drawn the attention of the public for the few last decades in all kinds of business. Many transformations in the business environment have taken place, including immoral conducts and the tendency for corruption. Unethical accounting behavior is also included as a consequence. So the government has been forced to increase regulations and inspect actions taken in business, most especially after the Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and other unethical accounting scandals. As a result of the mentioned scandals, the government then passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 providing regulatory requirements for better precision in business action, accountability and assurance of ethical accounting behavior by publicly held companies and accounting firms. According to Calle (2000), the total number of boards…

Financial Fraud

What is financial fraud?

Identifying Fraud

Effect on Economy

Are we Protected?

Identity Theft in Business

Enron Scandel

Loss Prevention Planning and Strategies

Financial Fraud

Financial fraud was an unfamiliar notion prior to the 2000's, but has become a controversial and familiar term due to economic woes, public disapproval and revamped financial regulations. Light was shed on some of America's top organizations intentionally changing their accounting books to look more attractive to investors than they were in actuality. Institutions and/or ranking officials at institutions were falsely publishing financial statements with fabricated values and profits presenting the illusion that investments with these entities were producing and would continue to produce consistent returns. In addition to recurring fraudulent activity, new highs for deposits of fraudulent checks were recorded by banks nationwide.

Government agencies aim to set regulations, enforce regulations, and protect American businesses and consumers from fraudulent activity. Laws are…

Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), previously the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), that by the time 2011, health care expenditure will arrive at $2.8 trillion, as well as it will bill for 17% of the Gross Domestic Product. As a result, it is no revelation that white-collar offenders observe health care deception as a rewarding effort. Certainly, the General Accounting Office ("GAO") quotes that such deception accounts for up to 10% of entire health care expense (3).

As health care deception outlays taxpayers almost $100 billion a year, federal, as well as state agencies have given health care fraud tribunal a key center of attention. All through her term, Attorney General Janet Reno made impeaching health care fraud a top precedence at the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), subsequent only to brutal offenses (3).

The government focuses its pains to perceive, as well as take legal action against health care fraud…

Amerigroup Illinois Inc. Fraud CaseAmerigroup Illinois Inc. was found guilty in 2006 under the Federal Claims Act and the Illinois Protection Act. Amerigroup and its subsidiaries denied enrolling pregnant women and unhealthy patients in its managed care program in Illinois. Amerigroup received payment from the state and federal governments to operate a Medicaid health care program for low-income earners (Department Justice, 2008). Amerigroup was mandated by law to enroll all applicants eligible for the care under the Medicaid program. The State of Illinois and the Federal government of the US filled claims against Amerigroup, alleging that the corporation overlooked their responsibility of enrolling unhealthy parents and pregnant women since it would have been more expensive and lowered the profit margins earned by the patients.The court entered into a $334 million judgment against Amerigroup under the Federal Claims Act and the Illinois Whistleblower eward and Protection Act. The Jury found the…

Companies secretly collecting and selling information about your online behavior
The large-scale information collection, information sale, and free access to sensitive, private information, accompanied by inadequate regulatory controls, leaves much room for misuse. Those who desire to limit access to their personal details find themselves with scant options as, in a majority of instances, parties that collect data are able to categorize, store, and sell free or captured information without the consent of the concerned individual. Even in instances where information is voluntarily given to social networking or e-shopping websites, web users cannot control who the information will be sold to (Tsesis, 2014). The data industry is currently a three-hundred-billion-dollar-per-annum industry, with around three million employees in the US alone. Information brokers attempt to understand customer identity and interests. For organizational delivery of more relevant advertisements to customers, data-brokering companies have to provide information on services and products of potential…

Utility Ethics: Enron

Utility Ethics at Enron

Why utility ethics is a valid way of deciding right and wrong

Utility ethics are considered to be universal, growth-driven, and offer service to the organization with the only consideration of the right and the wrong. Utility ethics is a valid way of deciding the right and wrong because growth does not always mean that it is right. The same perspective does not apply to failing: failure to grow does not mean the bad. Ethics touches on the best and universally acceptable interactions between the resources, human resource and tools for growth and development within an organization. Utility ethics are universal, with no bias, and always poised for higher chances of growth within an organization. Moreover, utility ethics consider the result and not the immediate results. They are founded on the basis that the process has to be good to have a better…

Clearly, he companies engaged in this practice were operating with direct intention, and a roper governance system would have made this obvious and prevented it.

Software Spying

In another telecommunications case, a company was found to have included spyware in a company-sponsored "software upgrade" to users' cell phones, that enabled the company to collect confidential information from users' phones without their consent (Khaleej Times, 2009). Not only is this practice clearly unethical, but it is also illegal despite a lack of stringency in the detection of such crimes and the prosecution of large-scale corporate offenders such as telecommunications companies. Again, greater transparency and internal control would have allowed this practice to be discovered much sooner, and the risk of discovery almost certainly would have prevented this action from ever occurring. Corporate governance works best when it is so strong it is only rarely and usually accidentally tested; when purposeful actions…

Corporate governance, IT Governance and Information Security Governance

IS 8310 Governance, isk Management and Compliance

Governance is the process of empowering leaders to implement rules that are enforceable and amendable. For comprehensive understanding of the term' governance' it is essential to identify the leaders and the set of rules, and various positions that leaders govern. Corporate governance, IT Governance and Information Security Governance embraces a linkage with certain acquiescence system while focusing on information security and privacy issues in the organization. This work will give a distinction between the three terms and identify how they related to each other and how endeavors to comply with each system is leveraged to apply to each other.

INTODUCTION

Governance is the process of empowering leaders to implement rules that are enforceable and amendable. Therefore, for comprehensive understanding of the term' governance' it is critical to categorize the leaders and the set of rules,…

Financial Fraud Fannie Mae

eview of Fraud Schemes within Fannie Mae 1998-2004

Scope

The agency found the fraud understatements of earnings and illegal gratuities that led to accounting violations and inability to meet Wall Street goals.

The investigation of Lee Frakas, executive of a major mortgage company which had dealings with Fannie Mae with hundreds of fake mortgages. The Securities Exchange Commission cited that Fannie Mae had to repay earnings and correct their books for the period 2001 through 2004. This major undertaking will cost the company over $11 billion by SEC estimates. In addition the Department of Justice has conducted a criminal investigation on the board members.

Summary

The top executive managing Fannie Mae were found guilty of illegally reporting accounting information that led to their receiving million dollar payments. Under Fraudulent Financial Statement Schemes this case is one of corruption and financial fraud. The specific areas include Illegal…

ole of Technology in Corporate and Social esponsibility

Insider trading. The insider trading case that has become most prominent is that against aj ajaratnam who ran the hedgefund Galleon Group, and was charged along with his co-defendant, Danielle Chiesi, a former consultant with New Castle Funds, LLC ("Insider Trading," 2010). ajaratnam was convicted of 14 counts of insider trading, which makes this case the largest scheme concocted by a hedge fund ("Insider Trading," 2010). ajaratnam's sentence was 11 years in prison accompanied by a $10 million fine ("Insider Trading," 2010). ajaratnam was part of a "triangle of trust" that functioned as a deliberately corrupt business model in which inside information is fed through networks of experts to traders within various companies ("Insider Trading," 2010). Along with five others, ajaratnam worked with a network of consultants and insiders to net in excess of $20 million between the years 2006 to 2009…

Without proper background checks prior to making the hiring decision, an organization can find itself employing individuals who have recently been fired elsewhere for fraud or theft.

An organization can also seek to prevent employee fraud as well as theft by developing well drafted and concise guidelines in regard to acceptable standards of conduct. In the opinion of Beesley (2011), there is an existing need for each and every business to have in place "an employee code of ethics and conduct." The author in this case points out that although such a document cannot entirety prevent instances of fraud; it does make a contribution to the promotion of lawful and ethical conduct.

Beesley (2011) also reaffirms Siegel's assertion as highlighted earlier on in this text that employee fraud largely has little or nothing at all to do with economic problems or conditions. As the author points out, studies have in…

Ethics, Corporate Governance and Company Social esponsibility

Information that is essential to share includes financial performance, business strategy and overall company actions (Pfeffer, 1998). Sharing this information gives the employees the power to evaluate their performance and help them make the right decisions on how they can improve it. This is a simple and very straightforward practice but most companies are still apprehensive about this practice. One cause for this is that information is power and by sharing essential information like financial performance the management is scattering that power. Another reason is that the management is concern about information escaping to competitors. This will put the organization in an unfavourable position. But what companies do not realize that the competition most probably already know this information. Thus if a company withheld information they are only leaving their own employees in the dark. Because of this, employees will reply on speculation…

This was followed by the enactments by House of Lords in 1897 in Solomon v. Solomon & Company. The concepts of corporate entity and limited liability were incorporated in English law in the same period. In this case, the head court announced that a company is a separate legal individual completely different from the members or shareholders.

From this announcement, we can say that a company is a separate legal entity having a separate life, different from its members. A company can be an owner of any property, can sue anyone, can be sued by anyone and has a life just as any going concern. It is a commonplace of the law, is a very heavy veil drawn between the two can be lifted in many cases; it seems that only a limited number of changes is based on current judicial thinking.

2.2 Some doctrines about Corporate Veil

The Court…

" hile there are factors like peer pressure and authority that come into play, some research claims to have isolated significant features of an individual's character that make them more likely to commit acts of fraud, bribery and falsification in the corporate context (27, 2009). For example, those people with "high levels of ambition were more likely to transgress moral codes, competitively stab colleagues in the back and make dubious decisions relating to asset-stripping, disinvestment, and so on" (27, 2009).

Trevino's (1986) work is relevant when it comes to understanding individuals and corruption. There are a couple questions regarding moral personality that come up: first of all, whether or not a person sees an event or issue as a moral problem; the second is how they decide to act in relation to that problem. Kohlberg's theory of cognitive moral development emphasizes the cognitive or reasoning aspect of moral-decision making (604,…

Asset misappropriation schemes are frauds in which the perpetrators use trickery or deceit in order to steal or misuse the resources within an organization. When asset misappropriation occurs the specific assets of the organization are taken directly for the benefit the specific person who is committing the fraud. People who are in a position to commit asset misappropriation related crimes cane be employees within an organization, vendors or customers of an organization, or it could also be people who are totally unrelated to the victim organization. A distinguishing element when it comes to asset misappropriation is the fact that the assets belonging to the organization are taken through deceitful or trickery means rather than through force. The actual act of asset theft concealment and conversion should all be present. Asset misappropriation is a major problem in organizations all over the world. esearch suggests that organizations loose almost 7% of their…

Corporate communications involves not just the message, but the idea that communications are managed, and are connected to corporate objectives (Cornelissen, 2004). Therefore, when communication possibilities were limited, corporate options were limited, and one did not see communications management perspectives that advocated the type of intimate connection between communications and corporate strategy that one sees in a modern context (Cornelissen, 2004). What this makes clear is that CC is not simply, or even primarily, about communications; it is an overall corporate strategy that helps define how a corporation interacts with the world.

The emphasis on communication is very different from how corporations were traditionally, historically structured. Traditionally, strategic planning occurred at the top of the corporate structure, management was considered a mid-level activity, and operational control was the function of first-level management, and this corporate strategy was used in most workplaces (Oliver, 1997). However, as institutional hierarchies were challenged and…

Business Ethics

Every company has corporate governance initiatives in place. Consider that corporate governance simply refers to how the company is run and controlled. The current usage of the buzzword derives from the issues that a few companies had where executives or managers were not subject to appropriate levels of governance. Thus, the guidelines issued recently by the OECD, the ASX, the Combined Code and in Sarbanes-Oxley serve to institutionalize stronger corporate governance policies in order to strengthen public confidence in capital markets. Most companies would already be following these guidelines.

For example, the first category covered by the Combined Code is about the Board of Governors. Boards of Governors have always been responsible for corporate governance -- for our company not to have any governance policy would imply that it does not have a Board. hat is recommended is that the Board has specific features and structures. One recommendation…

internal control weaknesses that existed at MCI that contributed to the commission of accounting fraud

The internal control weaknesses that existed at MCI that contributed to the commissioning of the accounting fraud was related to the very fact that Pavlov had the ability and access that allowed him to manipulate the account receivable system. Since he helped in the creation of the account receivable process, he was very ware of the system's strength and weaknesses as well as how to exploit them by manipulating the system (Lyon & Tocco,2007).He was therefore able to fraudulently receive payments, update as well as manipulate the account receivable records. This allowed him an opportunity of defrauding the firm and its clients by embezzling the funds to offshore accounts.

The exact fraudulent practices and tricks that Pavlo and his co-conspirators engaged in included the following:

The identification of the account receivables that were about to…

Other tools frequently used in this approach are positioning surveys and moving-average trend following trading rules. Fund managers regularly use these patterns to take informed decisions for short-term investments (Exchange ate Forecast, 2010).

Exchange rate risk affects both revenues and costs, which in turn affects a company's marketing, production, and financial decisions (Shapiro, n.d.). If a company's revenues are down then they might find themselves with less money to produce and market their product or service. If a company cannot produce or market their product or service they will probably not remain in business for very long. This is why it is so important to make financial decisions based upon a good model for forecasting exchange rates. A company's bottom line and ultimately their continued success rely heavily on their capability to have enough money to produce products and market them. A company that has no money to manufacture and…

The company showed a global reach early, adding numerous language versions around the world. In 2000, the company reached 18 million search queries per day and officially became the world's largest search engine ("Google, Inc." paras. 11-14).

The company now sought to address its need for income by introducing a keyword-targeted advertising program for another source of revenue. The company partnered with Yahoo! And with other partners, such as China's leading portal NetEast and NEC's BIGLOBE in Japan. Google introduced Adords, a self-service advertising program that could be activated with a credit card. By December of 2000, Google received more than 60 million searches per day and reached the 100-million search mark per day in 2001 ("Google, Inc." paras. 15-16).

Google as a Public Company

Google would offer an IPO of stock beginning in 2004. McShane and Von Glinow cite Google as a successful company, especially in terms of navigating…

Public elations (Corporate social responsibility)

The term 'Corporate Social esponsibility' refers to the social responsibility that a Company must honor towards the public, especially those people who have direct contact with and are therefore directly affected by the policies and actions of the company. The feeling that the social responsibility of multi-national companies are not of such standards that would satisfy the general public has lead to widespread protests and demonstrations against these companies at almost every free-trade meeting at the regional and national as well as the multi-national levels. The protests are also generally against worldwide globalization. Almost all major multinational companies are found lacking in their responsibilities towards the public. It is not at all sufficient for a company to satisfy its shareholders and investors and employees and the community in which they function from; in fact, these companies are expected to be aware of and take an…

iordan

A Corporate Compliance and Enterprise isk Management Plan for iordan Manufacturing

iordan Manufacturing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fortune 1000 company iordan Industries, and is engaged in the manufacturing of a variety of finished plastic goods and parts for use in other finished products that the company as been contracted to provide. The company has been highly successful utilizing a global network of manufacturing and distribution to maximize profitability by reducing labor costs and diversifying its product offerings, but this international exposure also places certain legal constraints and responsibilities on the company that must be accounted for in iordan Manufacturing's corporate compliance plan, which is the primary focus of the following paper.

In order to develop this corporate compliance plan, however, some background information on the company is necessary to determine organizational structure and culture, and also to develop a corporate compliance plan that is in keeping…

Because lending institutions stood to lose anytime borrowers defaulted on a loan, lenders always engaged in a very careful process of ensuring that loan applicants were capable of repaying any debts they sought to take on (Phillips, 2008).

Deregulation shortly before the turn of the century eliminated the self-interest basis of rejecting risky debtors, leaving only legal and ethical obligations to exercise due diligence in good faith (Phillips, 2008). Unfortunately, mortgage lenders throughout the nation began issuing loans irresponsibly and often without any collateral or interest due on the loan. Since they intended to sell off the obligation anyway, they had little concern for what might happen subsequently. Likewise, home realtors and mortgage brokers began aggressively soliciting business from customers unethically, often by exploiting their ignorance about variable-rate mortgage loans. Unfortunately, this process also triggered an artificial housing bubble based largely on inflated property value statements and those overvalued but…

Business Society and Corporate Values

There has indeed been a great deal of discussion regarding CEO compensation, which is rightly viewed as being completely out of line. The core problem and cause of inflated CEO salaries cannot be attributed to a single reason, but is rather the result of a range of inter-connected factors. What is definitive is the fact that these salaries have inflated over time; this is in part due to the fact that greed is a progressive, boundless factor. "According to the Economic Policy Institute, in the late 1970s, total compensation of chief executives in large American corporations was 35 times that of the average American worker. In 2007, it was 275 times that" (Borger, 2007). These facts alone demonstrate that there is good reason to be in a state of alarm. The reasons for such severely inflated and remarkably unjust salaries are a result of the…

Healthcare Fraud

Identity theft and fraud of many types and forms are obviously a major inconvenience and hindrance to anyone that falls prey to a person that engages that crime. There are many variants and forms of fraud and identity theft out there. One of the more insidious and nasty examples of those crimes would be that which relates to healthcare. Indeed, to have people's wallet, healthcare and the taxpayer dollar on top of that all potentially compromised in one fail swoop is a very ominous and nefarious endeavor. Even so, it happens all of the time and to all sorts of people. egardless of the particular situation or scenario, any instances of fraud or abuse when it comes to healthcare insurance, healthcare providers and the services dispensed from all of the above are never a good thing. While healthcare is deemed to be a right to be extended without…

Introduction

Enron was one of the biggest business collapses, and one of the most egregious incidents during a period in the early 2000s when investor faith in the securities system was shaken by a series of scandals. The scandals varied in terms of their composition, but behind each of them was greed, the drive by senior management teams to defraud securities regulators and investors for their own gain. This paper will look at the Enron fraud in particular. This was probably the worst, for the bald-faced contempt that Enron management showed to securities regulators, and the biggest, as Enron was one of the stars of the stock market during its ride up, and crashed to worthlessness almost instantly.

Key Players

As with most cases of stock market fraud, the key players were the senior executives. At Enron, the key players were Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Andrew Fastow and the accounting…

Corporate Accountability

The corporate scandals of the last fifteen years have brought the issue of corporate accountability to new light, adopting at times a center-stage discussion. When the Bernie Madoff scandal broke, many professionals turned to the accounting department at Madoff Securities along with the auditors who had audited the firm before. Madoff was the one who admitted to stealing $50 billion dollars during the decades that his firm was open -- even though his firm hadn't purchased securities in over 13 years. Such an admission of guilt demonstrates that without strict and enforceable tenets of corporate accountability, $50 billion dollars really can just disappear. Thus corporate accountability is something that needs to be fostered both internally and externally: if it is only enforced and fostered in one way, then this imbalance is doomed to create failure along with other ethical sunsets.

In order to properly enforce corporate accountability, it…

In contrast, within the firm, the entrepreneur directs production and coordinates without intervention of a price mechanism; but, if production is regulated by price movements, production could be carried on without any organization at all, well might we ask, why is there any organization?" (Coase, 1937, p. 387) In simpler words if markets are so efficient why do firms exist? Coase explains, "the operation of a market costs something [such as the costs of negotiating and concluding a separate contract for each exchange transaction] and by forming an organization and allowing some authority (an "entrepreneur") to direct the resources, certain marketing costs are saved" (Coase, 1937, p. 391). Thus, firms actually present greater efficiency over markets by decreasing such costs.

That being said, if firms are so efficient, why are markets needed? (Coase, 1937). As per Coase, as the firm grows (when the entrepreneur processes additional transactions), decreasing returns to…

This role is in response to clients' demands for a single trustworthy individual or firm to meet all of their financial needs. However, accountants are restricted from providing these services to clients whose financial statements they also prepare." (U.S. Department of Labor, ureau of Labor Statistics, 2009)

1. Public Accounting

The work entitled: "The Reality of the CPA's Role" states that modern CPAs work "behind the scenes as trusted advisors in nearly all significant business decisions. Successful accountants display the ability to think strategically and creatively and to be problem solvers and business advisors." (Douglass, 2006) Douglass states that the views of the CPA are widely varied "...whether from the viewpoint of the investing public or from the perspective of the companies that engage CPAs to audit their financial statements or perform other functions. In fact, many people not involved in the business management or accounting profession may perceive CPAs…

Therefore, while police and military organizations provide fertile recruitment areas, job announcements must make explicitly clear than no level of previous professional experience in either field necessarily qualifies any applicant for the position. Naturally, candidates for management of this department must be carefully selected to avoid individuals with any biases in that regard in either direction (Dalton, 2003).

Access Control Security Specialists

Candidates for access control security responsibilities may also benefit from previous police or military experience but recruitment initiatives should be broad enough so as not to exclude potentially qualified candidates with extensive experience in other fields that provide training in the operation of high-tech access control equipment (

). In that regard, recruitment initiatives should include senior airport security screeners and individuals working in varied organizations where access control via high-tech systems is a primary responsibility. In all cases, recruitment initiatives must make explicitly clear than hiring decisions…