...Paul D Staudohar, (1997) in the article, “Compensation and Working Conditions: Baseball’s Changing Salary Structure” mentions about how professional baseball player’s salary changed from past to present days. There are two systems why player’s salary increases. One is the Major League Baseball League Association formed in 1952. Then players tried to improve their playing conditions. Another accepted free agency systems in 1976. MLB teams tried to recruit the best player at that time to use the money. This article is very important to understand the Black Sox Scandal because article shows players’ salary at that time. According to Haupet, Ty Cobb earned the highest salary, which was only $20,000 in 1919. In addition, Charles Comiskey, who was...
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...INTRODUCTION This paper discusses the HealthSouth Case including the activities and subsequent prosecution of its CEO, Richard Scrushy. “During the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, federal prosecutors argued that Scrushy must have known something was amiss with HealthSouth’s financial statements since there was a discrepancy between the company’s financial and nonfinancial performance.” Over a ten-year period from 1987 to 1997, HealthSouth enjoyed above–average growth at a rate of 31 percent per year. (Jennings, 2012, 2009, p. 183) This phenomenal growth was due, in part, to a series of mergers and acquisitions let by the efforts of the company’s CEO, Richard Scrushy who ran the company with an iron fist and has at least one recorded conversation directing a CFO to fix the numbers over time. The fraud lasted for seven years and totaled approximately $2.7 billion. Mr. Scrushy denied knowing anything about the fraud, claimed it was all done by the people around him and was ultimately found not guilty of the fraud at HealthSouth but was convicted on bribery and corruption charges. Mr. Scrushy was ordered to pay $2.9 billion in restitution in a civil suit. “From at least 1996 until 2002, HealthSouth senior management perpetrated a financial statement fraud primarily through the use of nonstandard journal entries.” (Carmichael, 2010, p. 64) “Scrushy, once a high school dropout, worked as a gas station attendant and a bricklayer before retuning (sic)...
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...International Journal of Smart Home Vol. 3, No. 1, January, 2009 SOX and its effects on IT Security Governance Rosslin John Robles1, Min-kyu Choi1, Sung-Eon Cho2, Yang-seon Lee2, Tai-hoon Kim 1 School of Multimedia, Hannam University, Daejeon, Korea 2 Dept of Information Communication, Sunchon Univerity, Sunchon, Korea 3 Fumate Inc., Daejeon, Korea rosslin_john@yahoo.com, secho@sunchon.ac.kr, yslee@fumate.com, taihoonn@empal.com Abstract The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act is a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. This paper discusses the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act on corporate information security governance practices. The resultant regulatory intervention forces a company to revisit its internal control structures and asses the nature and scope of its compliance with the law. This paper reviews the implications emerging from the mandatory compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. Issues related to IT governance and the general integrity of the enterprise are also identified and discussed. Industry internal control assessment frameworks, such as COSO and COBIT, are reviewed and their usefulness in ensuring compliance evaluated. 1. Introduction Accounting scandals at some of the big corporations like Enron, HealthSouth, Tyco and WorldCom had a devastating impact on investor confidence. Clearly...
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...also appreciate comments from Jim Brickley, Philip Joos, Andy Leone, Jerry Warner, Joanna Wu, Yan Cao, Ling Lei, Laura Liu, Tao Kuang, and workshop participants at the University of Rochester. All errors are my own. * Abstract This paper investigates the economic consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through a study of market reactions to legislative events related to the Act. I find that the cumulative abnormal return around all legislative events leading to the passage of the Act is significantly negative. The loss in total market value around the most significant rulemaking events amounts to $1.4 trillion. I then examine the private benefits and costs of major provisions of the Act by investigating the cross-sectional variation in market reactions to the rulemaking events. Regression results are consistent with the hypothesis that shareholders consider both the restriction of nonaudit services and the provisions to enhance corporate governance costly to business. The results also show that Section 404 of SOX, which mandates an internal control test, imposes significant costs on firms. 1. Introduction In response to the collapse of a number of high-profile firms since late 2001, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (the Act or SOX hereafter) in July 2002 to enhance corporate governance and thereby restore public confidence. The Act has introduced significant changes in both management’s reporting responsibilities and the scope and nature of the responsibilities...
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...arranged into eleven titles. As far as compliance is concerned, the most important section within these eleven titles is usually considered to be Section 404, which deals with internal controls. Since 2002, there has been a lot of debate about whether the act has positively or negatively affected corporate America. In this paper I have discussed the opinions of both sides of the argument. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a bill passed by Congress in 2002 after several corporations took actions that caused their companies to fail. These companies include Enron and WorldCom. As a result of these actions, stockholders lost confidence in the financial system. The intent of the bill is to protect investors of corporations by making the corporations accountable for any unacceptable accounting errors and practices. The Act is named after its main proponents, Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley. The Acts real name is the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act (Baltzan, & Phillips, 2007). President George Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 as a result of the Enron scandal. It was passed with the hope that corporations will abide by the laws set. A board was formed thereafter to oversee accountants in publicly traded companies. The law not only governs accountants but also anyone...
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...Introduction This paper investigates the act of Audit Committees in enhancing the act of external audit so as to gratify stakeholders’ needs. In present years, Audit Committee (AC) has become to be one of the mainstays in Corporate Governance system in British public companies. It plays a vital act by bestowing critical oversight of risk management in a firm across monitoring the integrity of its financial statements in conjunction to company’s financial performance. According to the Combined Code on Corporate Governance, all listed company are needed to set up an AC. According Millichamp et al (2008), it should comprise of no less than three non-executive managers who are independent directors. The members should expert in certain areas in company, however should have no on-site managing the management of the business. Besides, members should state their duties and powers clearly in written form. External audits normally furnish non-audit services across the year and rely on the inner control. They furnish reasonable assurance concerning the effectiveness of internal controls above financial describing across a collection of evidence. They express their judgments if the financial statements are fairly gave by the association and additionally untitled make sure the accounting records are well upheld in a proper way. They are responsible to the stockholders in a firm in addition to reveal the annual financial reports by collecting the facts so as to attain reasonable assurance...
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...Purpose Entities (SPE’s) to hide financial debt. In other instances, people point toward Enron’s mismanagement of risk and overextension of capital resources, coupled with the stark philosophical differences in management that existed between company leaders, as the primary reasons why the company went bankrupt. Yet, despite these various analyses of why things went wrong, the story of Enron’s rise and fall continues to mystify the general public as well as generate continued interest in what actually happened. The broad purpose of this paper is to investigate the Enron scandal from variety perspectives. The paper begins with a narrative of the rise and fall of Enron as the seventh largest company in the United States and the sixth largest energy company in the world. The narrative examines the historical, economic, and political conditions that helped Enron to grow into one of the world’s dominant corporation’s in the natural gas, electricity, paper and pulp, and communications markets. Upon providing the substantive...
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...The Journey From Deregulation to Regulation - Are We Walking In Circles? Executive Summary This paper attempts to explore the cycle from deregulation to regulation against the backdrop of events from 2001 to 2008, with some reference to later laws such as Dodd-Frank. The context is against the quote from Aristotle that “law is order, and good law is good order”. A Brief history of Deregulation: Regulations have been considered a blessing and a curse since time immemorial. It could be argued, especially with those of a theological mindset, that religions introduced the first forms of regulations. The penalty for deviations were well laid out, and often times had precedent, but exceptions were always sought and loopholes were often explored. Modern economics, regardless of which school of thought is followed, can be compared to a religion1. There are tenets, or commandments. There are different religions, from Keynes, to Marx to Milton. Without extending this analogy, it is relevant to point out that economic theories either rely on governments to participate wholeheartedly in the state of economic affairs by regulating businesses, corporations and industries, or to let the system weed out the weaker in favor of the stronger. In the United States, bitter past experience shaped the regulations surrounding businesses. The Great Depression was the first indicator that the system needed to be made more robust, which in turn led to regulations that formed the base of what our current...
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...Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases" (2012). Honors Theses. Paper 100. This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact scholarly.communication@unh.edu. An Analysis of Fraud: Causes, Prevention, and Notable Cases University of New Hampshire Honors Thesis in Accounting Kristin Kennedy ADMN 799 Professor Le (Emily) Xu Fall 2012 Table of Contents I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. Background……………………………………………………………........1 a. What is accounting and what role does financial reporting serve?..........1 b. History of accounting standards………………………………………..2 c. Role of auditing………………………………………………………...5 Fraud……………………………………………………………………….6 a. Two types of fraud……………………………………………………..6 i. Misappropriation of Assets…………………………………….7 ii. Misrepresentation of Financial Statements…………………….7 b. Fraud Triangle………………………………………………………….8 c. What to look for in a fraudster…………………………………………9 Past Cases of Fraud……………………………………………………….10 a. WorldCom…………………………………………………………….11 b. Tyco International Ltd………………………………………………..15 c. Adelphia Communications Corporation…………………………....…17 Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002………………………………………...…....20 a. Analysis of SOX: Costs vs. Benefits…………………………………34 i. Interview of...
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...objective, we analyzed & reviewed some of the secondary information available on the internet related to the topic.. Based on our classroom knowledge on the related issues, we tried to make the report as specific and unique as possible. We humbly submit this report for your review and feedback. Preparation of this report demanded a minimum level of working knowledge of the process of audit & assurance . We also tried to follow your instructions properly now and when necessary. We would like to request you to allow us to submit the report. Sincerely Yours’ Group 18 Executive Summary The purpose of this paper is to propose a study on the corporate fraud cases & the role of auditors in Bangladesh perspective. It is tries to find out the reasons behind auditors involvement in the frauds & consequences. For this purpose, we collected & analyzed several research papers & other secondary data like:...
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...Organizational Design & Business Ethics: A Literature Review Abstract A review of the current literature regarding business ethics was conducted analyzing scholarly peer-reviewed articles about business ethics and their relation to leadership, managerial decision making, corporate social responsibility and overall corporate structure. Increased corporate scandals and the discovery of a rise in unethical business practices have thrown the topic of business ethics into the spotlight. Organizations are expected by their stakeholders to implement strong ethics within their corporate structure and culture. This expectation could be accomplished through strong ethical leadership, formal structures and regulations that place emphasis on ethics, and by making a commitment to corporate social responsibility. Using these guidelines will help organizations overcome the various challenges allowing the business to build a strong ethical foundation that will ultimately benefit the company through increased customer and employee satisfaction, which could result in increased profits, organizational sustainability and social status. The review of the literature reveals that there is still plenty of room for exploration on the topic of business ethics and particularly with the topic of ethical leadership. It is recommended that more focus be placed on understanding the influence of strong ethical leadership within an organization and how this influence flows down the organizational...
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...Government and the accounting profession needed to come up with a way to prevent these immense frauds from occurring in the future. As a response to these large frauds, in 2002, the US Government passed the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99(SAS No. 99) to improve investor confidence and the auditing function’s ability to detect material frauds. The intent of this thesis was to look at the fraudulent factors associated with several recent corporate frauds and compare them to the standards set by SAS No. 99. Through the analysis conducted, this thesis looks at the relationships between pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations made during the act of fraud. Table of Contents ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) 1 Statement of Auditing Standards Number 99 (SAS No. 99) 4 Parts of the Fraud Triangle 5 Types of Fraud 11 INSTANCES OF FRAUD 13 Enron Corporation 13 Adelphia Communications Corporation 17 AOL Time Warner, Inc. 20 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company 25 Global Crossing Limited 27 K-Mart 30 Tyco International, Ltd. 34 WorldCom 37 HealthSouth Corporation 41 CONCLUSION 45 Appendix: SOX Titles and Sections List 48 Works Cited 52 INTRODUCTION Between the years 1998 and 2002, the United States suffered a time in which several large companies engaged in...
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...due to accrual management. Our evidence is important, because it shows that post-SEO operating underperformance is driven not just by accrual reversals, but also reflects the real consequences of operational decisions made to manage earnings. We also show how firms’ choices of real versus accrual-based earnings management activities around SEOs vary predictably as a function of the firm’s ability to use accrual management and the costs of doing so. & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL Classification: G14 G32 M4 M41 Keywords: Seasoned equity offerings Earnings management Accounting choices Accounting Accruals Real activities 1. Introduction In this paper, we examine both real and accrual-based earnings management activities around seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Prior research has documented that SEOs are associated with earnings management and subsequent declines in operating performance (e.g., Rangan, 1998; Teoh et al., 1998; Shivakumar, 2000; DuCharme et al., 2004). These studies focused exclusively on accrual-based manipulation, and they attributed the post-SEO performance decline primarily to...
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...due to accrual management. Our evidence is important, because it shows that post-SEO operating underperformance is driven not just by accrual reversals, but also reflects the real consequences of operational decisions made to manage earnings. We also show how firms’ choices of real versus accrual-based earnings management activities around SEOs vary predictably as a function of the firm’s ability to use accrual management and the costs of doing so. & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL Classification: G14 G32 M4 M41 Keywords: Seasoned equity offerings Earnings management Accounting choices Accounting Accruals Real activities 1. Introduction In this paper, we examine both real and accrual-based earnings management activities around seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Prior research has documented that SEOs are associated with earnings management and subsequent declines in operating performance (e.g., Rangan, 1998; Teoh et al., 1998; Shivakumar, 2000; DuCharme et al., 2004). These studies focused exclusively on accrual-based manipulation, and they attributed the post-SEO performance decline primarily to...
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...CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Background The auditor’s roles are to provide an opinion on financial statement and to ensure that the statements are based on true and fair image of company performance to the stakeholders. They are authorized in checking the accuracy of business records. Opinions given by the auditor gives an added credibility to the financial statements (Maqableh, 2014). Commonly, investors often rely on financial statements provided by auditor in making investment judgement and increase the productivity of financial markets. Financial statements provided by the auditors are often reviewed as credible, unbiased opinion that truly reflects the company financial positions. There’s no doubt that auditor independence is the core of auditing profession when establishing its objectivity and integrity. Auditor independence, in particular, indicates the ability of an auditor to disregard any influence or control when conducting an opinion (AAA, 1973). Therefore, auditor must be, and must be seen to be independent of company management. Lack of independence causes audits to be considered to have little value (Johnstone, Sutton, & Warfield, 2001). This is further supported by Elliott and Jacobson (1998) that a particular interest may trigger a risk that could weaken the outcome of the audit which in turn impairs the auditor independence. Hence, independence is fundamental to the purpose served by auditors (Moore et al., 2002). This study is limited to...
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