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Satyam Scandal

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The Satyam Scandal

Jessica English
February 9, 2015
Professor Nauri Ahmed
ACC 556

The Satyam Computer Service started in 1987 by Byrraju RamalingaRaju in India. The Satyam became the fourth largest Indian IT firm in 2009, but January 7 2009, RamalingaRaju confessed to the very large revenue that was misstated of the company (Pallimanideep, 2015). Raju wrote a letter to the Satyam board confessing to the fraud and to reinsure no board members had no knowledge of the fraud. The letter written by RamalingaRaju states: “It is with deep regret and tremendous burden that I am carrying on my conscience, that I would like to ring the following facts to your notice: “The balance Sheet carries as of September 30,2008 (a) Inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances of Rs 5,040 crore (as against Rs 5,361 crore reflected in the books); (b) An accured inters of Rs 376, which is non-existent (c) An understand liability of Rs 1,230 crore on account of funds arranged by me; (d) An overstated debtors’ position of Rs 490 crore (as against Rs 2,651 reflected in the books);
For the September quarter we reported a revenue of Rs 2,700 crore and an operating margin of Rs 649 crore (24 cent of revenue) as against the actual revenues of Rs 2,112 crore and an actual operating margin of Rs 61 crore (3 per cent of revenues). This has resulted in artificial cash and bank balances going up by Rs 588 crore in quarter 2 alone ("Satyam fraud: Full text of Raju's letter to board", 2009).”
According to RamalingaRaju, the scandal originally started as a marginal gap between operating profit and it reflected in the books, but it later continued to increase throughout the years. He tried to close the gap, but nothing seemed to work for the founder. RamalingaRaju tried to cover-up a very low quarterly performance, but “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten ("Satyam fraud: Full text of Raju's letter to board", 2009). In the article “Satyam Scandal” RamalingaRaju took advantage of many people. First, he and his team forged bank deposits through many banks. Next, they created over 7,000 false invoices to make up for the sales that were not accounted for. Finally, he tricked investors who purchased stocks of the Satyam Computer and RamalingaRaju used false accounting and shares to take loans from banks (Pallimanideep, 2015). RamalingaRaju tried to hide the fraud by going through his families. A company, MAYTAS, belongs to his son Teja Raju. Byrraju RamalingaRaju attempted to acquire MAYTAS of 7000 crores, but the plan backfired by the board of directors. Later, he did not have any other choice other than revealing his falsification because he could not pay off the loans from the bank. In January 2009, Barraju RamalingaRaju and his brother B Rama Raju were arrested in Hyderbad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, police headquarters. The charges brought against the men were the following: cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust, and falsifying documents (Win, 2009). They are facing a possibility of up to 10 years in prison, if convicted. There are many ways this could scandal could have been prevented. First, there should be establishment of responsibility. Even though RamalingaRaju was the founder of Satyam, the responsibilities should be equal across the employees. According to the text, establishing responsibility often requires limiting access only to authorized personnel, and then identifying those personnel (Kimmel, 2013). Second, documentation procedures is a vital reason for the extreme amount of created invoices that it was not caught. If the invoices do not have any numbers (i.e. 100 – 7100), it would be hard to trace what was purchased, the amount of purchase, date of purchase, and etc. I would execute this plan by establishing key codes to all employees. Every employee would only have access to their specific job while only on duty.

Reference
Win, H. (2009, February 9). Former Satyam Chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, Arrested. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/former-satyam-chairman-b-_n_156657.html (Win, 2009)
Satyam fraud: Full text of Raju's letter to board. (2009, January 7). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://archive.financialexpress.com/news/satyam-fraud-full-text-of-rajus-letter-to-board/407799/3 ("Satyam fraud: Full text of Raju's letter to board", 2009)
Pallimanideep, D. (2015, January 12). The Satyam scandal. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from https://bizblock.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/the-satyam-scandal/ (Pallimanideep, 2015)
Kimmel, P., Weygandt, J., & Kieso, D. (2013). Fraud, Internal Control, and Cash. In Financial accounting: Tools for business decision making (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. (Kimmel, 2013)

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