• IFRS and Fraud: More Challenges, More Risks

    Written by Tracy Coenen, CPA, CFF AICPA Corporate Finance Insider Newsletter Reasonable accountants can disagree about whether a move to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will improve financial reporting. One key concern is that principles-based financial statements are much more […]

  • Compliance Week: Koss Embezzlement and Small Company Internal Controls

    Today’s Compliance Week article, “SEC Pursues Small Company Over Lax Internal Controls,” [subscription required] discusses the SEC settlement with Koss Corp over the $34 million embezzlement by former Vice President of Finance Sujata (Sue) Sachdeva. The article explains the settlement, […]

  • Michael Volkov on Internal Investigations: Best Practices

    Guest Post by Michael Volkov In-House counsel and corporate compliance officers dodge bullets everyday as they stare down the barrels of aggressive prosecutors, regulators, civil litigants, whistleblowers, disgruntled employees and shareholders prodded by trial attorneys to file derivative suits at […]

  • Article at CFO.com: When Your Compliance Program Fails

    The steps to take when an employee comes forward with a fraud tip, whether the allegations are false or not. By Tracy Coenen, Contributor to CFO.com You think your company has a robust compliance program to prevent financial-statement fraud, asset […]

  • Whistleblower Complaints: Fast Action Required

    Recently I wrote about an internal investigation I did for a company which received a whistleblower complaint, sent to executives, the board of directors, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Upon receiving notification that allegations of fraud were being made […]

  • Creating a Culture of Compliance

    “Tone at the top” is an overused phrase, but if companies want to mitigate fraud senior leaders need to speak up forcefully. Kimberly Blanton – CFO Magazine Cell-phone markets in Central America and Southeast Asia were booming early in the […]

  • Small Filers Struggle With Internal Controls Over Fraud

    Compliance Week – Melissa Klein Aguilar A large school of thought has developed to support the argument that non-accelerated filers should be exempt from compliance with Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley, which requires external auditors to review and attest to the […]

  • Office Theft Cases Illustrate Importance of Oversight

    Jane Pribek – Wisconsin Law Journal Beaver Dam attorney James H. Olson, of Olson Law Offices LLC, got a sick feeling when a letter from a nearby community bank arrived at his home. The letter was from the bank vice-president, […]

  • Koss Fraud Spotlights Small Filers’ Internal Control Issues

    Compliance Week – Tammy Whitehouse As Congress debates whether to exempt non-accelerated filers permanently from internal control audits—and that debate may take much longer than many expect—lawmakers might want to ponder the breathtaking fraud at Koss Corp. and its implications […]

  • Accountants Cite Lessons Learned in Koss Scandal

    Eric Decker – BizTimes.com How could one corporate executive make more than $30 million in unauthorized transactions over four years without anyone else on the company’s leadership team or its third-party accounting firm being aware of the embezzlements? That is […]