...Case 3.4 Sunbeam: Incentive and Pressures to Commit Fraud Case 3.4 Sunbeam: Incentives and Pressure to Commit Fraud 1. Consult paragraph 9 of PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5. Based on your understanding of inherent risk assessment and the case information. Identify three specific factors about Sunbeam that might cause you to elevate inherent risk. The fact that the structure of the organization was in major flux and that the employees were probably in chaos mode with all the terminations in management, I am sure that the overall tone from the top was not a good one. I would assume that employees felt that fraud would be accepted if it meant the bottom line numbers were impressive so this would definitely cause me to elevate the inherent risk level. Especially since replacement employees were given strong monetary incentives to have stock prices raise. There is also rapid change happening in the entity. Not only was there a huge turnover of staff but there was also the elimination of 87% of products. Headquarters were even closed and consolidated into one. On top of all of that there were huge sales projections along with the introduction of new products. This rapid change should set up a red flag for any auditor and cause them to continue to raise the inherent risk level. All of these changes and projections caused the stock prices to rise. Since it was known that top management had a personal stake in these stock prices this would also cause an alarm to go off...
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...Case #3.4 – Sunbeam – Incentives and Pressure to Commit Fraud I. Technical Audit Guidance To maximize the knowledge acquired by students, this book has been designed to be read in conjunction with the post-Sarbanes-Oxley technical audit guidance. All of the post-Sarbanes-Oxley technical guidance is available for free at http://www.pcaobus.org/Standards/index.aspx. In addition, a summary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is also available for free at http://thecaq.aicpa.org/Resources/Sarbanes+Oxley/Sarbanes-Oxley+–+The+Basics.htm. II. Recommended Technical Knowledge PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5 Paragraph #9 Paragraph #11 Paragraphs #29-30 Paragraph #32 Paragraph #A8 (in Appendix A) III. Classroom Hints This case provides students with an opportunity to apply their technical knowledge about inherent risk and fraud risk to Sunbeam's business model during the 1990's. By providing details about Sunbeam business during this time, students are able to see the relationship between an audit client's business strategy and inherent risk assessment at the financial statement assertion level. In addition, this case provides students with an opportunity to think about fraud risk assessment during times of significant change at an audit client. To meet these objectives, this case illuminates a number of relevant issues about the development of Sunbeam. In particular, the case focuses on the changes that occurred at Sunbeam after hiring Albert J. Dunlap as...
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...Case 1.11 WorldCom: The Definition of an Asset Line Cost Expenses WorldCom generally maintained its own lines for local service in heavily populated urban areas. However, it relied on non-WorldCom networks to complete most residential and commercial calls outside of these urban areas and paid the owners of the networks to use their services. For example, a call from a WorldCom customer in Boston to Rome might start on a local (Boston) phone company’s line, flow to WorldCom’s own network, and then get passed to an Italian phone company to be completed. In this example, WorldCom would have to pay both the local Boston phone company and the Italian provider for the use of their services.1 The costs associated with carry- ing a voice call or data transmission from its starting point to its ending point are called line cost expenses. Through the end of 2000, WorldCom incurred substantial line cost expenses when it made large capital investments to increase the size of its Internet back- bone and expand its local and data networks. To do so, it entered into long-term, fixed-rate leases for network capacity to take advantage of a perceived boom in the technology sector. However, customer traffic did not grow as rapidly as antic- ipated. In addition, the telecommunications market became extremely competi- tive, forcing WorldCom to reduce the fees it charged to customers. As a result, in late 2000 and early 2001, WorldCom’s ratio of line cost expense to revenue (line cost E/R ratio)...
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...Auditing Cases instructor resource Manual f our th e d itio n Mark S. Beasley Frank A. Buckless Steven M. Glover Douglas F. Prawitt do not coPy or redistribute Prentice hall Upper Saddle River, New Jersey ta b l e s e ct ion o f co n t e n t s 1 2 client acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S o l u tionS inc lu de d in t h iS Section 1.1 Ocean Manufacturing, Inc. 3 The New Client Acceptance Decision s e ct ion Understanding the Client’s Business and assessing risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 S o l u tionS inc lu de d in t h iS Section 2.1 Your1040Return.com Evaluating eBusiness Revenue Recognition, Information Privacy, and Electronic Evidence Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.2 2.3 2.4 Dell Computer Corporation Evaluation of Client Business Risk Flash Technologies, Inc. Asher Farms Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Risk Analysis and Resolution of Client Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Understanding of Client’s Business Environment s e ct ion 3 Professional and ethical issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 S o l u tio nS inc lu de d in t h iS Section 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 A Day in the Life of Brent Dorsey Staff Auditor Professional Pressures Nathan Johnson’s Rental Car Reimbursement Solving Ethical Dilemmas–Should...
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...Auditing Cases An Interactive Learning Approach FIFTH M F S D E D ITIO N S. B A. B M. G F. P Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Editor in Chief: Donna Battista Acquisitions Editor: Stephanie Wall Editorial Project Manager: Christina Rumbaugh Senior Managing Editor: Cynthia Zonneveld Production Project Manager: Carol O'Rourke Senior Operations Supervisor: Diane Peirano Printer/Binder: BindRite Graphics, Robbinsville Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text. Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2006, 2003, 2000 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, or you may fax your request to 201-236-3290. Many of the designations by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish...
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...Chapter Four Professional Accounting in the Public Interest, Post-Enron Purpose of the Chapter When the Enron, Arthur Andersen, and WorldCom debacles triggered the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), a new era of stakeholder expectations was crystallized for the business world and particularly for the professional accountants that serve in it. The drift away from the professional accountant’s role as a fiduciary to that of a businessperson was called into question and reversed. The principles that the new expectations spawned and renewed resulted in changes in how the professional accountants are to behave, what services are to be offered, and what performance standards are to be met. These standards have been embedded in a new governance structure and in guidance mechanisms, which have domestic and international components. The influence of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) will be as important as that of SOX in the long run. This chapter examines each of these developments and provides insights into important areas of current and future practice. Building upon the understanding of the new stakeholder accountability framework facing clients and employers developed in earlier chapters, this chapter explores public expectations for the role of the professional accountant and the principles that should be observed in discharging that role. This leads to consideration of the implications for services to be...
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...THE LEGAL REGULATION OF THE EXTERNAL COMPANY AUDITOR IN POST-ENRON SOUTH AFRICA Hannine Drake THESIS PRESENTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF LAWS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH Supervisor: Prof A.H. van Wyk March 2009 ii DECLARATION By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the owner of the copyright thereof (unless to the extent explicitly otherwise stated) and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. Date: 25 February 2009 Copyright © 2009 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In acknowledgement to all who have contributed to this work in some form: writing this thesis would have otherwise been like swimming through mud. To my supervisor, Professor Andreas van Wyk, thank you for your leadership, patience, and academic skill in guiding me through the research process. To Adéle Mulder and Charl Marais, thank you for your continuous insight and perspectives, both academic and otherwise. And finally to Hilda and Gerrie Steyn, who have been absolutely crucial throughout all my years of study, thank you for your indispensable support, in all its forms. iv SUMMARY The worldwide increase of corporate failures on the scale of Enron and WorldCom has sparked a renewed international trend of corporate governance review...
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...THE ACCIDENTAL INVESTMENT BANKER This page intentionally left blank THE ACCIDENTAL INVESTMENT BANKER · Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street · JONATHAN A. KNEE 1 2006 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2006 by Jonathan A. Knee Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available ISBN-13: 978-0-19-530792-4 ISBN-10: 0-19-530792-5 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Chaille Bianca and Vivienne Lael and William Grant who says he wants to be an investment banker ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As a f i r s t - t i m e au t h o r ...
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...Learning with Cases INTRODUCTION The case study method of teaching used in management education is quite different from most of the methods of teaching used at the school and undergraduate course levels. Unlike traditional lecture-based teaching where student participation in the classroom is minimal, the case method is an active learning method, which requires participation and involvement from the student in the classroom. For students who have been exposed only to the traditional teaching methods, this calls for a major change in their approach to learning. This introduction is intended to provide students with some basic information about the case method, and guidelines about what they must do to gain the maximum benefit from the method. We begin by taking a brief look at what case studies are, and how they are used in the classroom. Then we discuss what the student needs to do to prepare for a class, and what she can expect during the case discussion. We also explain how student performance is evaluated in a case study based course. Finally, we describe the benefits a student of management can expect to gain through the use of the case method. WHAT IS A CASE STUDY? There is no universally accepted definition for a case study, and the case method means different things to different people. Consequently, all case studies are not structured similarly, and variations abound in terms of style, structure and approach. Case material ranges from small caselets (a few paragraphs...
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