• Dubai Buys 20 Percent of Nasdaq Stock Market

    The Nasdaq Stock Market is selling a nearly 20 percent stake to Borse Dubai and is taking control of the Nordic exchange operator OMX as part of a sweeping settlement of their battle for control of OMX. In a global […]

  • Judd Bagley antics: Part 3

    ScipioAfricanus then brings us to the story of SlimVirgin. SlimVirgin is an administrator for Wikipedia. Judd Bagley has been known to sock puppet on Wikipedia with many screen names, and the administrators have disallowed these things. (They even went so […]

  • More Judd Bagley: Part 2

    Our pal ScipioAfricanus gives us more information on the Overstock.com “Black Ops” activity. Judd Bagley, Director of Communications at Overstock.com, has this nasty little habit related to spyware. He’s been caught embedding images in public message board posts… those special […]

  • Catching up on Judd Bagley: Part 1

    I’ve been a bit remiss in my blogging about the train wreck that is called Overstock. com. The CEO, Patrick Byrne (known to many as “Wacky Patty”) and his Director of Communications, Judd Bagley regularly engage in questionable behavior in […]

  • Book publishing: The Book is Done!

    The final manuscript was sent today, so Essentials of Corporate Fraud is officially done. I’ll have a small bit of work to do after the copy editors get their hands on it, but I don’t expect there to be much […]

  • Okay, I did it. I watched Kid Nation.

    A month ago, I did a post on the new reality television show called Kid Nation. I was basically horrified as I learned that the children on this show were exploited by their parents, who signed lengthy contracts allowing their […]

  • Food Stamp Follies: Oregon Governor’s Publicity Stunt, and the Reporting

    Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski got lots of attention earlier this week as he tried to show us how allegedly inadequate the Food Stamp program is. However, the USDA’s “food stamp budget” provides per-person per-week benefits to recipients with no other […]

  • Plea Agreement with Bill Lerach

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office has announced a plea agreement with Bill Lerach, former partner at Milberg Weiss. He will plead guilty one one count of conspiracy, forfeit $7.75 million, and pay a $250,000 fine. He will receive a prison sentence […]

  • Finding fraud by looking at ratios

    While doing some research, I came across an old article written by Joe Wells on analyzing ratios to find fraud. The article Irrational Ratios was published in the Journal of Accountancy, and used the ZZZZ Best case to illustrate the […]

  • Whistleblowers and Sarbanes-Oxley

    One of the major selling points of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was the protection for whistleblowers. The legislation required public companies to put into place “anonymous reporting mechanisms” (like hotlines) so that employees could report suspected fraud without fear […]