...Bernard Lawrence ‘Bernie” Madoff Valerie Correa Prof. Masheika E. Allen BUS 100 Mini Session 10/26/2010 1. Describe three types of illegal business behavior alleged against Mr. Madoff and for each type of behavior, explain how the behavior is illegal or unethical in the conduct of business. Mr. Madoff was found guilty of white collar crimes. Some of the crimes he was found guilty of were money laundering, perjury and securities fraud. Description: Securities fraud is one of many white collar crimes which violate trading laws. The definition of security encompasses many things including stocks, bonds, commodities and other investments. Money laundering is money obtained from criminal activity as a white collar crime is and have it appear as it originated from a legitimate source. Money laundering laws were enacted to take the profit out of criminal activity. Perjury is known as lying under oath. It is the deliberate, willful giving of false, misleading or incomplete testimony under oath. Mr. Madoff, who is allegedly lost $50 billion in investor money in histories largest documented Ponzi scheme, He plead guilty for stealing vast sums of dollars from individuals and organizations, some of them charitable, by taking their money and pretending to invest it in the stock market, when in actuality he used the...
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...and family however the secrecy and not accepting just anyone are part of what made so many people want to be a part, thereby becoming one of the best marketing tactics ever. The first question I wanted to know was who is this man that earned the respect of some of the biggest names on Wall Street, the trust of friends, family and strangers and where did he come from? • Start of firm senior in college The firm that Madoff started in 1960 with the $5,000 he saved was a trading business that specialized in the trading of penny stocks – Continued to earn money as a life guard and landscaper until his business took off • Bernard Madoff is a former financier, American hedge-fund investment manager, chairman of the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) stock exchange, and chairman of the firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. He is the main conspirator of the history’s largest investor fraud committed by a single person. As the investor pool grew to an estimated well over 8000 investors some of the major players – that probably had hundreds or thousands of sub- investors themselves were: • The Fairfield Greenwich Group - Jeffrey Tucker, general partner, began...
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...Wor9 - 1 04 - 0 71 R EV: JU LY 2 6 , 2 00 4 RO BERT S. KAPLAN D A VI D KIR O N Accounting Fraud at WorldCom WorldCom could not have failed as a result of the actions of a limited number of individuals. Rather, there was a broad breakdown of the system of internal controls, corporate governance and individual responsibility, all of which worked together to create a culture in which few persons took responsibility until it was too late . — Richard Thornburgh, former U.S. attorney general1 On July 21, 2002, WorldCom Group, a telecommunications company with more than $30 billion in revenues, $104 billion in assets, and 60,000 employees, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Between 1999 and 2002, WorldCom had overstated its pretax income by at least $7 billion; a deliberate miscalculation that was, at the time, the largest in history. The company subsequently wrote down about $82 billion (more than 75%) of its reported assets.2 WorldCom’s stock, once valued at $180 billion, became nearly worthless. Seventeen thousand employees lost their jobs; many left the company with worthless retirement accounts. The company’s bankruptcy also jeopardized service to WorldCom’s 20 million retail customers and on government contracts affecting 80 million Social Security beneficiaries, air traffic control for the Federal Aviation Association, network management for the Department of Defense and long-distance services for both houses of Congress and the...
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...CASE 1.12 MADOFF SECURITIES Synopsis A childhood friend summed up the driving force in Bernie Madoff’s life: “Bernie wanted to be rich.” As a youngster growing up in New York City, Bernie realized that Wall Street was the greatest wealth creation machine the world had ever known. So, after graduating from college in 1960, he set his sights on joining the exclusive fraternity that ran Wall Street by organizing his own one-man brokerage firm, Madoff Securities. Madoff was one of the first individuals to recognize that computer technology provided the means to “democratize” Wall Street by establishing a system that made securities trading much more efficient and much cheaper. In the early 1970s, Madoff and several other individuals organized the NASDAQ exchange, which was destined to become the world’s largest electronic stock market. Years later, the NYSE would be forced to follow suit and switch to electronic securities trading. Literally millions of investors have benefitted from the lower transaction costs of electronic securities trading that were in large part a result of the pioneering efforts of Bernie Madoff. Unfortunately, Bernie Madoff will not be remembered as a pioneer of electronic securities trading. Instead, the word “Madoff” will always be associated with the phrase “Ponzi scheme.” Although his stock brokerage firm was extremely lucrative, Madoff eventually established a parallel business, investment advisory services. Over a period of several decades, Madoff...
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...Bernard Madoff was either the most ethically void individual or he just had no regard for ethics. He managed to pull off one the largest Ponzi scheme in history with very little help. He had a legitimate stock trading business on one floor and his illegitimate investment management business was on another floor (Ferrell, Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2011). The top executives in the company were family which leads to the question, did they really not know? This paper will examine the origin of the Ponzi scheme, a brief history of Bernie Madoff, and the fallout as a result of his fraudulent business. A Ponzi scheme is “a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors out of the money paid by subsequent investors rather than from legitimate profits (Fitzpatrick, 2010).” The Ponzi scheme was named after Carlo (Charles) Ponzi who fled Italy for America at the age of 21. In 1919 Ponzi developed a scheme to get investors to buy postage coupons in one country and then sell them for more money in another country (Wells, 2009). Instead of investing the money he used the pooled funds to pay investors. This lasted until 1920 when a federal audit confirmed he was bankrupt, he had scammed investors for more than $4 million (Wells, 2009). According to Wells (2009), the Madoff scheme “...may be the largest single fraud of any kind in history...” The estimated total of the Madoff scheme is $65 billion, it is the largest financial fraud in the history of Wall Street. On...
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...Bernard Madoff Research Paper Bernard (Bernie) Madoff committed this century’s largest Ponzi scheme to date. First we will define Ponzi Scheme – it is a fraudulent pyramid scheme where original investors are paid their gains out of new investors money so it would appear to old investor that the scheme (business) is producing an unusually large return (Albrecht, 2009). The Ponzi scheme that Madoff created and pulled off for years was quite intricate. In a standard pyramid scheme each victim unknowingly brings in more and more victims, where as a Ponzi scheme has a single entity (group or individual) to keep up with and organize the fraud. The operator of the Ponzi scheme then will take new money brought in from recent investors and pay off previous investors. For this to continue on there must be a constant influx of new investors so there must be someone working that angle on a regular basis. Eventually the group of new investors will run out because the funds dry up. In a lot of Ponzi schemes when they begin to run low on victims things seem to fall apart and investors loose it all. In some cases the perpetuator escapes the area with all the money he / she have scammed. When or if they are caught the perpetuator will have to face prosecution and / or repayment of all money to victims and possible jail / prison time or pay restitution to the government. In some cases there are assets seized to reimburse victims and pay restitution (Smith, 2011). Madoff committed...
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...THINK THIS LADY IS PISSED? Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. Here's a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana ... I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is! "Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight!!! 1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) for FIFTY YEARS. 2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63). 3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. 4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and "your ilk" pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and your "shill commission" are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN. 5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now "you morons" propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because "you idiots" mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money...
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...AVOIDING INVESTMENTS IN FRAUDULENT COMPANIES: THE WORLDCOM FRAUD Introduction The purpose of this report is to investigate and discuss the accounting fraud that occurred at WorldCom in order to recommend improved strategies to Berkshire Hathaway’s management for avoiding investments in companies with fraudulent financials. Accounting fraud is a crime committed by high level employees at an organization to manipulate the organization’s financial statements and intentionally disguise company performance. The fraud is committed without the knowledge of owners (shareholders and investors) to benefit the individuals perpetrating or committing the fraud and results in a negative impact on the owners. This report will give a brief background on WorldCom and the telecommunications industry, and then discuss the details of the WorldCom accounting fraud in order to provide relevant recommendations to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. for mitigating future losses due to investing in fraudulent companies. We expect management to become more knowledgeable regarding high fraud risk investments and therefore make better informed investment decisions. Recommendations to Berkshire Hathaway include improving current risk assessment procedures and enhancing investment policies. WorldCom and the Telecommunications Industry WorldCom was the leader of the telecommunications industry during the 1990’s; in 2000, WorldCom was the 25th largest company in the world (Anderson, 2013, p. 48). The...
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...Innocent or Guilty: Bernie Ebbers Part in the Downfall of WorldCom The story surrounding the failure of WorldCom in the early 2000's is one that still haunts the financial market to this day. We often hear accounts of what happened within the telecom giant, but only one person could give a first-hand account of what she observed being the on the frontline and discovering one of the nation's biggest financial scandals of the last quarter century. Cynthia Cooper's account of her internal audit experience within WorldCom paints a bigger picture of what the scandal was like, how it was discovered, and who may have been involved. Even though we all know CEO Bernie Ebbers as the man behind the explosive growth of the firm, there still remains a lot of suspicion surrounding whether or not Bernie knew about the downfall of the firm. It is reasonable to believe that because he was WorldCom's main man, he would have known about the financial statement fraud that was occurring. But after reading Cooper's account of what occurred within the firm, I have to conclude that he didn't, in fact, know that CFO Scott Sullivan was instructing the accountants to cook the books. "Bert C. Roberts's testimony for the defense at Ebbers's criminal trial was in contrast to Sullivan's assertions earlier in the trial that he repeatedly told Ebbers in 2000 through 2002 that the company's accountants were making "adjustments that weren't right" in response to Ebbers's demands to "hit the numbers"...
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...Mark Willis BUS 508 – Contemporary Bus November 15, 2013 Determine the most important five skills that a forensic accountant needs to possess and evaluate the need for each skill. Be sure to include discussion regarding the relationship between the skill and its application to business operations. As the annual price tag for fraud at American business soars to nearly $1 trillion, the demand for Certified Public Accountants that provide forensic accounting services has increased exponentially- a spike that appears in no danger of waning over the next several years. (Carlino, 2010) With the demand for forensic accounting services increasing, it is very beneficial for prospective employers and employees to know what skills are needed to fulfill the duties of this very important occupation in today’s society. “Forensic accounting encompasses collecting, analyzing, and evaluating evidence, and the interpreting and communicating the findings in courts, boardrooms or other venues.” (Carlino, 2010) There are numerous skills needed for these positions but five skills are vital in becoming am effective forensic accountant. The most essential skill needed to become an effective forensic accountant is included in the description of the position. One has to be very analytical in their profession in order to become efficient and effective. Being a problem solver in any business is a trait that no business wants lacking from their employees, but in the field of finance and...
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...Bernie Madoff Research Project Abronia S. Young D03202587 On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal offenses, including securities fraud, wire fraud , mail fraud , money laundering, making false statements, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan, and making false filings with the SEC. The Fraud In March 2009, Madoff admitted that since the mid-1990s he stopped trading and his returns had been fabricated. Madoff's sales pitch, an investment strategy consisted of purchasing blue chip stocks and taking options contracts on them, sometimes called a split-strike conversion or a collar. Typically, a position will consist of the ownership of 30–35 S&P 100 stocks, most correlated to that index, the sale of out-of-the-money calls on the index and the purchase of out-of-the-money 'puts' on the index. The sale of the 'calls' is designed to increase the rate of return, while allowing upward movement of the stock portfolio to the strike price of the calls. The puts, funded in large part by the sales of the calls, limit the portfolio's downside. Rather than offer high returns to all comers, Madoff offered modest but steady returns to an exclusive clientele. The investment method was marketed as too complicated for outsiders to understand. He was secretive about the firm’s business, and kept his financial statements closely guarded. One of the most prominent promoters was J. Ezra Merkin, whose fund Ascot Partners steered $1.8 billion towards Madoff's...
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...THE RISE AND FALL OF BERNIE MADOFF Bernadette Smith Business Law Professor Kopf 8/22/2010 Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff , born April 29, 1938 is an incarcerated former American stock broker, investment adviser, non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of what has been described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history. In March 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal crimes and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. Madoff said he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s. However, federal investigators believe the fraud began as early as the 1980s, and that the investment operation may never have been legitimate. The amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost $65 billion. The court-appointed trustee estimated actual losses to investors of $18 billion. On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed. Madoff founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960, and was its chairman until his arrest on December 11, 2008. The firm was one of the top market maker businesses on Wall Street, which bypassed "specialist" firms by directly executing orders over the counter from retail brokers. On December 10, 2008, Madoff's sons told authorities that their father had just confessed to them that the asset management arm of his firm was a massive...
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...David Friehling will quite possibly be a future case study in auditing textbooks and courses throughout the United States. Mr. Friehling was the auditor for Bernard Madoff, who was recently convicted of running the largest Ponzi scheme ever uncovered through his business, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC (BMIS). Mr. Madoff claimed to actively oversee more than $65 billion in private investments (it was later revealed that roughly $823 million remained of the more than $170 billion that went through his accounts over the years).(1) Mr. Friehling flagrantly and purposely violated provisions of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Code of Professional Conduct,(2) Generally Accepted Auditing Standards,(3) promulgations of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and Securities and Exchange Commission, and other applicable laws, regulations, rules, and guidelines. Mr. Friehling is a former Certified Public Accountant in New York State; he had a modest office with a total of three employees in suburban New City, NY. Mr. Madoff claimed to manage $65 billion in resources…how could what was essentially a one-person practice audit financial statements of that magnitude? The blatantly obvious answer is that Mr. Friehling could not. After accepting an engagement, the initial task for any CPA firm would be to establish an audit plan, which would plainly show that many auditors would be required for that type of engagement. There were countless...
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...* From year 1999 to 2002, the company under Ebbers (CEO) and Sullivan (CFO)) used fraudulent accounting methods to cover its declining earnings by painting a false picture of financial growth and profitability to prop up the price of WorldCom’s stock. * The fraud was accomplished primarily in two ways: * Underreporting which is interconnection expenses with other telecommunication companies by capitalising these costs on the balance sheet rather than properly expensing them. * Inflating revenues with bogus accounting entries from "corporate unallocated revenue accounts".` * In 2002, a small team of internal auditors at WorldCom worked together, often at night and in secret, to investigate and found out $3.8 billion in fraud. Shortly thereafter, the company's audit committee and board of directors were notified of the fraud. * As the result, WorldCom has accumulated around $41 billion in debt. By the time it declared bankruptcy in 2002, the organization had combined loss of $73.7 billion. Ebbers and Sullivan both had multiple power based from both their formal positions in the company (legitimate and coercive power) as well as power bases that were inherent in them as individuals (expert and referent power). There were also no contingencies to their power as they basically control absolute power over all employees from highly visible positions. Legitimate Power – As the CEO and CFO of WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan requested employees make...
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...WorldCom Ethical Scandal In the late 1990’s, WorldCom was a successful company and leader in the telecommunications world. They had merged with MCI and the company was regarded for being innovative and growth hungry. However, in the midst of all the mergers WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebberly began to mismanage the company. WorldCom was no longer meeting their numbers and it looked like stock prices would fall. Rather than letting this happen, executives at WorldCom doctored the books. CFO Scott Sullivan and auditors used accounting practices and judgments that were highly illegal and unethical (Mintzberg 2003). Over the course of its operations, WorldCom had successfully acquired a total of 65 companies, of which 11 were acquired between 1991 and 1997, and in that course accumulated around $41 billion in debt (Romar 2006). By the time it declared bankruptcy in 2002, the organization’s growth strategy through acquisitions, its loans to senior executives, and poor corporate governance contributed to the fall of the company. Through a series of fraudulent activities and unethical behavior, the company fell from a leader in the telecommunications industry to a company filing for bankruptcy. WorldCom’s financial executives used fraudulent accounting methods to present a false representation of the company’s financial stability. They hid various costs by capitalizing them by listing these costs as assets on their balance sheet instead of properly recording them on the income...
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