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In Plain Sight

Posted by on April 29, 2017 Comments Off on In Plain Sight

By Rumbi Petrozzello, CPA/CFF, CFE
2017 Vice-President – Central Virginia Chapter ACFE

Recently, I was listening to one my favorite podcasts, Radiolab, and they were discussing a series on Audible called “Ponzi Supernova”. Reporter Steve Fishman hounded infamous Ponzi schemer, Bernie Madoff, for several years. One day, Bernie called Steve, collect, and thus began the conversations between Madoff and Fishman that makes this telling of the Madoff Ponzi scheme like none other.

The tale is certainly compelling (how can a story of the largest known Ponzi scheme not be fascinating) and hearing Bernie Madoff talking about what he did and hearing what he says motivated him makes this series something I listened to from beginning to end, almost without taking a break. Through it all, as had happened just about every time I read or heard about Madoff, I was amazed that he was able to perpetrate his fraud for as long as he did, which, depending on who you believe, started somewhere between the early 1960s and 1992 (even Madoff gives different dates for when he started). This is no surprise. All too often, when fraudsters are caught, they try to minimize the extent of their wrongdoing. If they know that you’ve found $1,000, they’ll tell you that $1,000 was all they took. If you go on to find more, then the story will change a little to include what you’ve found. It’s very rare that a fraudster will confess to the full extent of her crime at the first go around (or even at the second or third).

As I listened to the series, something became very apparent. Often when people discuss the Madoff Ponzi scheme, one tends to get the feeling that, for decades, he took money from new investors to pay off old investors and carried on his multi-billion-dollar scheme without a single soul blowing the whistle on him. But that’s not the case. In a 477-page report from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Office of Investigations (OIG) entitled “Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme – Public Version”, between June 1992 and December 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received “six substantive complaints” regarding Madoff’s company and some of these complaints were submitted more than once.

One complaint mentioned in the report was received three times, with versions submitted in 2000, 2001 and 2005; the 2005 version was even entitled “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud”. This complaint series was submitted by Madoff’s most well-known nemesis, the whistleblower, Harry Markopolos. But, there were at least five other individuals who shared their concerns and suspicions about Madoff with the SEC. Three of these specifically used the words “Ponzi scheme”, including the first complaint, in 1992. Based on these complaints, the SEC conducted two investigations and three examinations and, even though the complaints explicitly stated that they suspected that Madoff Investments was a Ponzi scheme, none of the investigations or examinations concluded that Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme. To add to this, the SEC was aware of two articles that questioned Madoff’s returns. Over the years, several investment companies performed their own due diligence and decided that Madoff’s company did not make sense and they believed that investing with Madoff would be a violation of their fiduciary duty to their clients. Despite all of this, none of these investigations or exams contained a finding of fraud.

Whether you’re a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) or a CPA, Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF), the work that you do is governed by a set of professional standards that help establish a performance baseline. This begins with competence. This means that those taking on an assignment should be able to complete the assignment successfully. This does not necessarily mean that whoever is leading the job needs to know how to do everything. It does mean that they should ensure that there is the right skill set working on the job, even if it means the use of referrals or consultation. Too many times, while reading the OIG report, the reader confronts the mention of a lack of experience. Listening to Ponzi Supernova, I learnt that at least one examiner was only three weeks out of school. The OIG report stated that, for one examination, because the person leading the investigation had no knowledge of how to investigate a suspected Ponzi scheme, they decided to just not investigate that claim; they decided instead to investigate what they knew, and that was front running (though even that investigation was carried out poorly).

Another ACFE professional standard is that of due professional care. Due professional care “requires diligence, critical analysis and professional skepticism”. It also means that any conclusion that a CFE reaches, must be supported by evidence that is relevant, sufficient and competent. Several times during the various investigations and examinations, SEC staff would ask Madoff or his employees questions and then accept any answers they were given without seeking any third-party confirmation. Sometimes, even when third-party confirmation was sought, the questions asked of those third parties were not the correct ones. Madoff himself tells the story of how, in 2006, Madoff testified that he settled trades for his advisory clients through his personal Depository Trust Company (DTC) account and he even gave the SEC his DTC account information. At this point Madoff was sure that, once the SEC checked this out, his fraud would be discovered. Instead, the SEC merely asked the DTC if Madoff had an account, and nothing more. Had they asked about account activity, they would have then discovered that Madoff’s account, even though it existed, did not trade anywhere near the volume purported by his statements. This brings up other aspects of due professional care; adequate planning and supervision. With proper supervision, the less experienced can be trained not just to ask questions, but to ask, and get adequate answers to, the correct questions. The person reviewing their work would be able to ask them, “did the answer that you got from the DTC answer the question that we are asking? Can we now confirm not that Madoff has an account with the DTC but, instead, that he is trading billions of dollars through these accounts?”

Time and time again, in the OIG report, the SEC stated that they did not have experienced and adequate staff for their examinations and investigations of Madoff. This was an excuse that was used to explain why, for instance, they did not send out requests for third-party confirmations, even after drafting them. In one case, staff stated that they did not send out a request to the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) because it would have been too time-consuming to review the data received. Adequate planning would have made sure that there was sufficient, qualified staffing to review the data. Adequate supervision would have ensured that this excuse for not sending out the request was squashed. However, it is not the case that no third-party confirmation requests were sent out. Some were and some of those sent out received responses. Responses were received from the NASD and other financial institutions These entities all claimed that there was no activity with Madoff on the dates that the examiners were asking about. Even with that information, there was no follow-up on the part of the examiners. At every turn, there seemed to be a lot of trust and just about no verification. This is even more surprising when you hear that the examiners would write notes about how Madoff was obviously lying and how many people had reported to the SEC that Madoff was running a dishonest business. Even with so much distrust, and so many whistleblowers, it turned out that those sent to shine a light on Madoff’s operations all seemed to be looking in all the wrong places.

Part of planning an investigation is determining what is being investigated and how the investigation is going to be executed. A very important part of the process is determining, beforehand, what will be done with negative results. When third-party responses were received and they all stated Madoff had not done business with them as claimed, the responses appear to have been filed and no further action taken. When responses were not received, the SEC did not follow up to find out why nothing had been returned. They likely would have found that the institution had not responded to the inquiry because there was nothing to respond about. There does not appear to have been a defined protocol on what to do when the answer to the question, “did this happen” was “No.”

I urge you to, at the very least, read the executive summary of the OIG report. For me at least, what Madoff could get away with, time and time again, with each subsequent SEC examination or investigation, is jaw-dropping. The fact that 1) several whistleblowers shared their concerns and even accompanied them with a great deal of detail and 2) that articles were written and yet, 3) those with access to the information that could prove, with very little effort, that Madoff was not doing what he claimed to be doing, found nothing of concern is something I struggle to comprehend. This whole sad history does underline the importance of referring to, and abiding by, our professional standards, to minimize the risk of missing a fraud like this one. Most importantly, it reduces the risk that someone might get an aneurism trying to wrap their mind around how, even when so many others could see that something was amiss, the watchdog missed it all!

Overhanging Liabilities

Posted by on April 2, 2017 Comments Off on Overhanging Liabilities

Most experienced CFE’s are familiar with financial fraud cases involving the overhanging liabilities represented by artfully constructed schemes to avoid income taxes since multiple ACFE training courses over the years have focused on the topic in detail.  But for those new to fraud examination and to the Central Virginia Chapter, a little history.  Before 2002, accounting firms would provide multiple services to the same firm. Hired by the shareholders, they would audit the financial statements that were prepared by management, while also providing consulting services to those same managers. Some would also provide tax advice to the managers of audit clients. However, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) restricted the type and the intensity of consulting services that could be provided to the management of audit clients because the provision of such services might compromise the objectivity of the auditor when auditing the financial statements prepared by client management on behalf of the shareholders. Nevertheless, both before and after the passage of SOX, as subsequently reported in the financial press, both the major accounting firms Ernst & Young (E&Y) and KPMG were offering very aggressive tax shelters to wealthy taxpayers as well as to the senior managers of their audit clients.

In the 1990s, E&Y had created four tax shelters that they were selling to wealthy individuals. One Of them, called E.C.S., for Equity Compensation Strategy, resulted in little or no tax liability for the taxpayer. The complicated tax plan was a means of delaying, for up to thirty years, paying taxes on the profits from exercising employee stock options that would otherwise be payable in the year in which the stock options were exercised. E&Y charged a fee of 3 percent of the amount that the taxpayer invested in the tax shelter, plus $50,000 to a law firm for a legal opinion that said that it was “more likely than not” that the shelter would survive a tax audit. E&Y had long been the auditor for Sprint Corporation. They also took on as clients William Esrey and Ronald LeMay, the top executives at Sprint. In 2000 E&Y received:

  • $2.5 million for the audit of Sprint,
  • $2.6 million for other services related to the audit;
  • $63.8 million for information technology and other consulting services, and
  • $5.8 million from Esrey and LeMay for tax advice.

In 1999 Esrey announced a planned merger of Sprint with WorldCom that potentially would have made the combined organization the largest telecommunications company in the world. The deal was not consummated because it failed to obtain regulatory approval. Nevertheless, Esrey and LeMay were awarded stock options worth about $3ll million. E&Y sold an E.C.S. to each of the two executives. In the three years from 1998 to 2000, the options profits for Esrey were $159 million and the tax that would have been payable had he not bought the tax shelter amounted to about $63 million. The options profits for LeMay were $152.2 million and the tax thereon about $60.3 million.

Subsequently, the Internal Revenue Service rejected the E&Y tax shelter of each man. Sprint then asked the two executives to resign, which they did. Sprint also dismissed E&Y as the company’s auditor. On July 2, 2003, E&Y reached a $15 million settlement with the IRS regarding their aggressive marketing of tax shelters. Then, in 2007, four E&Y partners were charged with tax fraud. These four partners worked for an E&Y unit called VIPER, “value ideas produce extraordinary results,” later renamed SISG, “strategic individual solutions group.” Its purpose was to aggressively market tax shelters, known as Cobra, Pico, CDS, and CDS Add-Ons, to wealthy individuals, many of whom acquired their fortunes in technology-related businesses. These four products were sold to about 400 wealthy taxpayers from 1999 to 2001 and generated fees of approximately $121 million. The government claims that the tax shelters were bogus and taxpayers were reassessed for taxes owed as well as for related penalties and interest.

On August 26, 2005, KPMG in turn agreed pay a fine of $456 million for selling tax shelters from 1996 through 2003 that fraudulently generated $11 billion in fictitious tax losses that cost the government at least $2.5 billion in lost taxes. The four tax shelters went by the acronyms FLIP, OPIS, BLIPS, and SOS.  Under the Bond Linked Premium Issue Structure (BLIPS), for example, the taxpayer would borrow money from an offshore bank and invest in a joint venture that would buy foreign currencies from that same offshore bank. About two months later, the joint venture would then sell the foreign currency back to the bank, creating a tax loss. The taxpayer would then declare. a loss for tax purposes on the BLIPS investment. The way that BLIPS were structured, the taxpayer only had to pay $1.4 million to declare a $20 million loss for tax purposes. BLIPS were targeted at wealthy executives who would normally pay between $10 million and $20 million in taxes.

Buying a BLIPS, however, effectively reduced the investor’s taxable income to zero. They were sold to 186 wealthy individuals and generated at least $5 billion in tax losses. The FLIP and OPIS involved investment swaps through the Cayman Islands, and SOS was a currency swap like the BLIPS. The government contended that these were sham transactions since the loans and investments were risk-free. Their sole purpose was to artificially reduce taxes. Some argued that the KPMG tax shelters were so egregious that the accounting firm should be put out of business. However, Arthur Andersen had collapsed in 2002, and if KPMG failed, then there would be only three large accounting firms remaining: Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ernst & Young. KPMG Chairman, Timothy Flynn, said “the firm regretted taking part in the deals and sent a message to employees calling the conduct inexcusable. KPMG remained in business, but the firm was fined almost a half billion dollars.

Because of the Ernst & Young and KPMG tax fiascos, the large accounting firms have become wary of marketing very aggressive tax shelters. Now, most shelters are being sold by tax “boutiques” that operate on a much smaller scale and so are less likely to be investigated by the IRS.  The question that remains, however, is to what extent should professional accountants be selling services that directly or indirectly abet even lawful tax avoidance which, as the ACFE tells us,  can so easily shade into what the IRS calls tax evasion?

Talking Through the Hindrances

Posted by on February 13, 2017 Comments Off on Talking Through the Hindrances

That control self-assessment (CSA) can be used as an effective facilitation tool to develop fraud risk assessments is, I’m sure, of no surprise to many of the readers of this blog.  But, for those of you who are not so aware … typically, a control self-assessment session to identify fraud risk is a facilitated meeting of managerial and operational staff (the business process experts) coming together to openly discuss fraud risk prevention objectives related to identified risk factors associated with one or more of a company’s business processes.

Fraud prevention objectives for the business process are identified, as well as obstacles impeding the success of those objectives.  Finally, the team suggests, for upper management consideration, ways to overcome identified obstacles and a proposed corrective action plan is prepared.  At the start of the self-assessment session, the participants adopt a Team Operating Agreement to ensure that an open and honest discussion takes place in a threat free environment.  It takes a consensus of the participants to approve the operating agreement which all the participants in the session sign; no management decisions regarding actions to be taken are made during the session.

After the Operating Team Agreement is in place, team members typically develop and approve what they perceive to be a list of fraud prevention objectives for the target business process under discussion.  Once the anti-fraud objectives are defined, the participants enter a discussion (and develop a list) of what they feel to be the existing overall fraud prevention strengths of the subject process.  Next, the team discusses and develops a list of the hindrances currently preventing the process from achieving its anti-fraud related objectives.  Finally, the team develops recommendations for overcoming the identified hindrances.  Sometimes the team ranks its fraud reduction recommendations by order of importance but this step is not critical.

A CSA for fraud prevention is akin to a risk assessment brainstorming session.  For example, the scope of such a session regarding a financial reporting related business process might be tailored to the risks of financial statement fraud and misstatement as well as to the issue of management override of controls over financial statement reporting.  The objective of the CSA is for the team to identify and discuss fraud risks, fraud scenarios and mitigating controls followed by the preparation of a set of recommendations for referral to management.

For each risk factor identified the CSA team should:

–try to identify what would cause a fraud to occur, or detail the risk factor itself;
–determine the specific fraud risk;
–determine potential fraud schemes or scenarios associated with the risk;
–identify affected financial accounts;
–identify staff positions that could potentially be involved;
–try to assess the type, likelihood, significance and inherent risk involved;
–formulate the controls that could mitigate the risk;
–classify the controls by type (i.e., preventative, detective, entity, and process level);
–identify and assess residual risk.

Certified fraud examiners (CFE’s) have an active role to play in tailoring the CSA format for use in risk identification and mitigation as well as in performing actual facilitation of the CSA sessions.   Specifically, CFE’s can help client staff develop a more detailed, in-depth understanding of complex fraud risks that management and operational staff sometimes only vaguely perceive.  Armed with the knowledge developed during the CAE session(s) and coupled with their risk assessment and group facilitation skills, CFE’s can assist management and the audit committee of the client to identify, assess, and develop final fraud risk mitigation strategies to strengthen the fraud prevention program of the organization as a whole.  Following what are sometimes multiple CAE sessions, CFE’s can assist the team in detailing the menu of anti-fraud measures developed during the individual sessions in a report to client management embodying the anti-fraud recommendations of the CAE session members to the Executive Management Team and to the audit committee for their consideration.  It’s up to top management to decide which of the CSA team’s anti-fraud recommendations to implement and which of the team’s identified risks to accept.

Just a few of the advantages of conducting fraud prevention related CAE’s for critical client business processes include:

–building fraud risk awareness among those middle level managers charged with day-to- day management of our client companies business processes;
–mapping organization wide fraud prevention efforts to specific business processes;
–establishing links between information technology (IT) systems development projects and the broader fraud prevention program;
–identifying, documenting and integrating fraud prevention skill sets across all the business processes of the organization;
–support for the construction of a strong, management supported fraud prevention program that enjoys full management and board support company wide.

Finally, consider the advantages that the self assessment process brings to the ethical dimension of the utilizing enterprise.  The values that a corporation’s managers and directors wish to instill in order to motivate the beliefs and actions of its personnel need to be conveyed to provide the required guidance.  Usually such guidance takes the form of a code of conduct that states the values selected, the principles that flow from those values, and any rules that are to be followed to ensure that the appropriate values are respected.

The code of conduct itself is a worthy subject for a series of separate control self assessment sessions composed of representative levels of company staff such as the management team, lower level management and the operating staff.  The results of these sessions can be analyzed and a final comprehensive report produced documenting the comments (and even suggested revisions) that CSA participants have made regarding the code during their respective sessions.  This exercise is, thus,  an excellent vehicle to build “ownership of the code” among the staff comprising all levels of the enterprise.

Public Trust

Posted by on January 19, 2017 Comments Off on Public Trust

The current round of congressional hearings involving the secretarial appointments to the Trump administration appear to be raising numerous questions about conflicts of interest and as well as instances involving possible self-interested stock trading on the part of several of the wealthy candidates.  Issues involving self-interest are no less important for assurance professionals like CFE’s, auditors and public accountants than they are for presidential appointees.

The misuse of information for personal interest by an assurance professional can be detrimental to other stakeholders of the client or company involved. For example, the use of information by any professional before others have the right to use such information is unfair and considered unethical. This is the basic problem for anyone who is privy to inside information about a company by virtue of being its auditor or an employee, that is, an insider, to use that information personally or indirectly for any self-interested purpose. To ensure the basic fairness of stock markets so that the public and other non-insiders will wish to enter the market, regulatory bodies like the SEC require management insiders to wait until the information is released to the public before allowing insiders to trade, and then they must disclose these trades so the public will know what’s happened.

The prospect of a rigged game, in which insiders have an unfair advantage, would not be in the public interest or in the interest of the corporations using the market for fund raising in the long run. Insider trading rules also apply to the families of the insider, extending even to those who are not part of the immediate family but for or over whom the insider has an obvious ability to exert influence or extract gain. Some individuals with high-profile jobs in the public service go even further to avoid such conflicts of interest. To be entirely ethical, some politicians have placed their holdings, and those of their dependents, in so-called blind trusts, which are managed by someone else with instructions not to discuss trades or holdings with the politician. The situation for we auditors is somewhat different in that the ownership of shares or financial instruments of a client is forbidden based on the real or potential conflict of interest that would be created. Most auditing firms extend this ban in two ways. First, the ban is applied to the auditor’s family and to persons who would be considered significant dependents or subject to influence. Second, the ban may also apply to any client of the firm, even if that client is serviced through a wholly separate office (for international firms, even in another country) with which the individual professional does not have contact on a normally occurring basis.

Where the ban is relaxed on trading in shares of the firm’s clients for employees not directly involved in the client’s affairs, extreme care is taken through information barriers/firewalls and reporting/scrutiny mechanisms to manage the conflict of interest created. The extent of attention paid to the prevention of insider trading and even to the perception of it is indicative of the alarm with which most firms view its prospect. Confidentiality is the term used to describe keeping confidential information that is proprietary to a client or employer. The release of such information to the public, or to competitors, would have a detrimental effect on the interests of the client, and it would be contrary to the expectations of trust of any fiduciary relationship.

In the case of a fraud examiner, this expectation of trust and privacy is vital to the client’s willingness to discuss difficult issues, which are quite germane to the investigation, to get the opinion of the examiner on how they might be dealt with in court proceedings and even, eventually, in the public eye. In the case of auditors, how frank would the discussion of a contentious contingent liability be if there were a possibility the auditor would reveal the confidence? How could a contentious tax treatment be discussed thoroughly if there was the possibility of a voluntary or involuntary disclosure to the tax collection authorities? It’s therefore argued by the ACFE, the AICPA and others that the maintenance of client confidences is essential to the proper exercise of the audit function, and to the provision of the best advice based on full discussion of possibilities.

There are, however, limits to privacy that some professions have enshrined in their codes of conduct, or where these limits are spelled out in regulatory frameworks. Engineers, for example, must disclose to appropriate public officials when they believe a structure or mechanism is likely to be harmful to the users, as in the potential collapse of a building due to violations of the building code.  In most western countries, money laundering for drugs and terrorism must be reported to financial authorities by banking professionals. For auditors as well there appears to be an increasing focus on their public responsibility and an increasing expectation of action rather than silence. This trade-off between the interests of client, management, public, regulators, the profession, and management promises to be an ever growing conundrum for all professionals in the future. One issue that is not as well understood as is often thought is the consequence of a professional accountant observing strict confidentiality about the malfeasance of his or her employer, and being directed by the professional code to resign if the employer cannot be convinced to change their behavior. This would follow from the codes of conduct that require no disclosure of client/employer confidences except in a court of law or subject to a disciplinary hearing, and at the same time requiring resignation to avoid association with a misrepresentation. In the event of a resignation in silence, the ethical misdeed goes unrecognized by all stakeholders except the perpetrators and the silent professional. How does this protect the interests of the public, the shareholders, or the profession?

It has been suggested, as a topic for discussion, that strict confidentiality codes be modified to allow for the introduction of the possibility of consultation on such matters with officials of the professional’s certifying institute. Perhaps through such confidential dialogue, a means could be found to better judge what needs to be kept confidential, when and how disclosure ought to be made, and how the professional’s and the public’s interests can be protected. For an auditor, the situation is different. When an auditor is discharged, or replaced, the incoming auditor has the right to ask the outgoing auditor (and the client) what the circumstances were that led to the dismissal or resignation. In some jurisdictions, the removed auditor even has the right to address the shareholders at their annual meeting, or by mail, at the expense of the corporation involved.

CFE’s and other assurance professionals of all types are sophisticated enough to know that our professional codes don’t cover every ethical challenge and that investigations and engagements involving potential or suspected insider trading and conflicts of interest are no exception.  We must all, therefore, continue to develop judgement, values and character traits that embrace the public expectations inherent in emerging stakeholder oriented accountability and governance frameworks.

Empire Lost

Posted by on December 19, 2016 Comments Off on Empire Lost

marthastuart2Last week my wife and I were confronted with the challenge of  hosting a Christmas party for 24 of our relatives.  We thought we’d serve a standing prime rib roast to the guests and turned to a Martha Stewart Cooking School episode on PBS for preparation guidance.  Needless to say, the roast was delicious but seeing Stuart again after all this time got me thinking about her classic insider trading case of what now seems so long ago.

In June 2002, Martha Stewart began to wrestle with allegations that she had improperly used inside information to sell a failed personal stock investment to the unsuspecting investing public. That was when her personal friend Sam Waksal was defending himself against Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegations that he had tipped off his family members so they could sell their shares of ImClone Systems Inc. just before other investors learned that ImClone’s stock was about to tank. Observers presumed that Stuart was also tipped off and, even though she proclaimed her innocence, the rumors would not go away. On daily TV as the reigning guru of homemaking, Ms. Stuart was the multimillionaire proprietor, president, and driving force of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (MSO), of which, on March 18, 2002, she owned 30,713,475 (62.6 percent) of the class A, and 30,619,375 {100 percent) of the class B shares.

On December 27, 2001, her class A and class B shares were worth approximately $17 each, so on paper her MSO class A shares alone were worth over $500 million. Class B shares were convertible into class A shares on a one to-one basis. What was not known was that Stewart had sold 3,928 shares of ImClone for $58 each on December 27, 2001.  This was not public until the information surfaced in June 2003.  The sale generated $227,824, and she avoided losing $45,673 when the stock price dropped the next day.  The whole sorry episode over this relatively small amount of money wound up causing her endless personal grief and humiliation, dealt a devastating blow to her reputation, and precipitated a punishing drop to $5.26 in the MSO share price.

As some of your probably remember, it turned out that Stuart had made an investment in ImClone, a company that was trying to get the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring to market an anti-colon cancer drug called Erbitux. Samuel Waksal, then the CEO of ImClone and a friend of Stuart’s, was apparently warned on or close to December 25, 2001, that the FDA was going to refuse to review Erbitux. Per later SEC allegations, Waksal relayed the information to his family so they could dump their ImClone shares on the public before the official announcement. Martha claimed (and still claims) that she didn’t get any early inside information from Waksal, but regulators believed that she may have either gotten it from her broker or from her broker’s aide. The activities of several of Waksal’s friends, including Stuart all came under almost immediate investigation by the SEC.

Waksal was arrested on June 12, 2002, and charged with “nine criminal counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and perjury, and then freed on $10 million bail. In a related civil complaint, the SEC alleged that Waksal “tried to sell ImClone stock and tipped family members before ImClone’s official FDA announcement on Dec. 28.”  Per the SEC, two unidentified members of Waksal’s family sold about $10 million worth of ImClone stock in a two-day interval just before the announcement. Moreover, Waksal also tried for two days to sell nearly 80,000 ImClone shares for about $5 million, but two different brokers refused to process the trades. Stuart denied any wrongdoing. She was quoted as saying: “In placing my trade I had no improper information…. My transaction was entirely lawful.”  She admitted calling Waksal after selling her shares, but claimed: “I did not reach Mr. Waksal, and he did not return my call.”  She maintained that she had an agreement with her broker to sell her remaining ImClone shares “if the stock dropped below $60 per share.” Stuart’s viewing public, however, was skeptical. She was asked embarrassing questions when she appeared on TV for a cooking segment, and she declined to answer saying: “I am here to make my salad.”

Martha’s interactions with her broker, Peter Bacanovic, and his assistant, Douglas Faneuil, quickly came under scrutiny. Merrill Lynch & Co. suspended Bacanovic (who was also Sam Waksal’s broker) and Faneuil, with pay, in late June. Later, since all phone calls to brokerages are taped and emails kept, it appeared to be damning when Bacanovic initially refused to provide his cell phone records to the House Energy and Commerce Commission for their investigation. Then, on October 4, 2001, Faneuil “pleaded guilty to a charge that he accepted gifts from his superior in return for keeping quiet about circumstances surrounding Stewart’s controversial stock sale.”  Faneuil admitted that he received extra vacation time, including a free airline ticket from a Merrill Lynch employee in exchange for withholding information from SEC and FBI investigators.

Per court records:

“On the morning of Dec. 27, Faneuil received a telephone call from a Waksal family member who asked to sell 39,472 shares for almost $2.5 million. Waksal’s accountant also called Faneuil in an unsuccessful attempt to sell a large block of shares. Prosecutors allege that those orders “constituted material non-public information.” They also allege that Faneuil violated his duty to Merrill Lynch by calling a “tippee” to relate that Waksal family members were attempting to liquidate their holdings in ImClone. That person then sold “all the tippee’s shares of ImClone stock, approximately 3,928 shares, yielding proceeds of approximately $228,000.”

One day later, on October 5th, it was announced that Stuart had resigned from her post as a director of the New York Stock Exchange (a post she held only four months) and the price of MSO shares declined more than 7 percent to $6.32 in afternoon trading. From June 12th to October 12th, the share price of MSO declined by approximately 61 percent. Stuart’s future took a further interesting turn on October 15th, when Sam Waksal pleaded guilty to six counts of his indictment, including: bank fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and perjury. But he did not agree to cooperate with prosecutors, and did not incriminate Stuart. Waksal’s sentencing was postponed until 2003 so his lawyers could exchange information with U.S. District Judge William Pauley concerning Waksal’s financial records.  After October 15th, the price of MSO shares rose, perhaps as the prospect of Stuart’s going to jail appeared to become more remote, and/or people began to consider MSO to be more than Stuart and her reputation. The recovery from the low point of the MSO share price in October to December 9, 2002, was about 40 percent.

Stuart still had a lot to think about, however. Apparently, the SEC gave Stuart notice in September of its intent to file civil securities fraud charges against her. Stuart’s lawyers responded and the SEC deliberated. Even if Martha were to get off with a fine, prosecutors could still bring a criminal case against her in the future. It is an interesting legal question, however, that if Stuart had simply pled guilty to the civil charges, would she have avoided criminal liability completely? On June 4, 2003, Stewart was indicted on charges of obstructing justice and securities fraud. She then quit as Chairman and CEO of her company, but stayed on the Board and served as Chief Creative Officer. She appeared in court on January 20, 2004, and watched the proceedings throughout her trial. In addition to the testimony of Mr. Faneuil, Stewart’s friend Mariana Pasternak testified that Stewart told her Waksal was trying to dump his shares shortly after selling her ImClone stock. Ultimately, the jury did not believe the counterclaim by her broker, Peter Bacanovic, that he and Stuart had a prior agreement to sell ImClone if it went below $60. Although the judge dismissed the charge of securities fraud for insider trading, on March 5, 2004, the jury found Stewart guilty on one charge of conspiracy, one of obstruction of justice, and two of making false statements to investigators.

The announcement caused the share price of her company to sink by $2.77 to $11.26 on the NYSE. Stuart immediately posted the following on her website:

“I am obviously distressed by the jury’s verdict, but I continue to take comfort in knowing that I have done nothing wrong and that I have the enduring support of my family and friends. I will appeal the verdict and continue to fight to clear my name. I believe in the fairness of the judicial system and remain confident that I will ultimately prevail.”

Stuart was subsequently sentenced to 5 months in prison and 5 months of home detention-a lower than maximum sentence under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines-and she did appeal. Although she could have remained free during the appeal, on September 15, 2004, she asked for her sentence to start immediately so she could be at home in time for the spring planting season. Martha’s appeal cited “prosecutorial misconduct, extraneous influences on the jury and erroneous evidentiary rulings and jury instructions” but on January 6, 2006, her conviction was upheld.

Stuart may continue to disagree with the verdict to this day but there is little doubt that the allegations and her subsequent convictions had a major impact on her personally, and on the fortunes of MSO and the shareholders that had faith in her and in her company. Assuming a value per share of $13.50 on June 12th, the decline to a low of $5.26 in early October 2003 represents a loss of market capitalization (reputation capital) of approximately $250 million, or 61 percent. The value of MSO’s shares did return to close at $35.51 on February 7, 2005, but fell off to under $20 in early 2006. Per a New York brand-rating company, the Martha Stewart brand reached a peak of 120 (the baseline is 100) in May 2002, and sank to a low of 63 in March 2004.

As my wife and I can attest, Stuart has returned to TV with a version of her usual homemaking and design shows, her new Martha Stewart Cooking School and related books.  Her products and magazines continue to be sold.  Still, what a catastrophe for so many to save just $45,000.

The Equity Strip Tease and Flip

Posted by on October 31, 2016 Comments Off on The Equity Strip Tease and Flip

home-equityThe recent troubles at Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo and the many
come-ons on television targeting senior citizens attest to the fact that the traditional scams and schemes among conventional and shadow lenders are as alive and well as ever.   If you thought sub-prime loans and equity stripping were financial ghosts of the past, think again.

It generally takes years for any borrower to build equity in a home. Fraud examiners should help consumers be aware that fraudsters employ several common ways to take that equity away. The most common technique used by fraudsters to steal consumers’ equity is known as equity stripping.  In equity stripping schemes, lenders promote ways consumers, especially the elderly and recent immigrants, can obtain cash by borrowing against the equity established in their home. The fraudulent lender is not concerned about whether the payments can be made once the loan is granted, and may even encourage consumers to fudge on their loan application to obtain the loan. If monthly payments cannot be met on the loan, consumers are subject to foreclosure on, and the subsequent loss of, their home, including all their equity.

Subprime loans have recently become a significant and growing part of the auto financing market and have never completely dried up in the home equity market. Subprime lending refers to the extension of credit to higher risk borrowers or to those with non-existent credit histories at interest rates and fees higher than conventional loans. Some companies make auto and home equity loans to minorities, the elderly, and low-income borrowers at interest rates as high as 20 to 24 percent in states without usury statutes.  As the ACFE tells us, as a rule, loans made to individuals who do not have the income to repay them are intentionally designed to fail; they typically result in the lender acquiring the borrower’s financed property. In the case of a home, the borrower is likely to default on the loan and ultimately lose his home through foreclosure or by the signing over of the house deed to the lender in lieu of such foreclosure.

Another frequent lender scam to separate home owners from their equity is credit churning. Churning, or loan flipping, is directed toward consumers who own a home and have been making mortgage payments for years. A lender calls to talk about refinancing a loan, and using the availability of extra cash as bait, claims it’s time the equity in the consumer’s home started working for him or her. When the consumer agrees to refinance his loan, the borrower’s troubles begin.  After the consumer has made a few payments on the loan, the lender calls to offer a bigger loan for, say, a family vacation to Disney World. If the consumer accepts the offer, the lender refinances the original loan and then lends the consumer additional money. In this practice, often called flipping, the lender charges the homeowner high points and fees each time s/he refinances, and may increase the interest rate as well. If the loan has a prepayment penalty, which is often the case, the consumer must pay that penalty as well each time a new loan is taken out.  The bottom line is that now the consumer has some extra money and a lot more debt, stretched out over a longer payment period. With each refinancing, the consumer has increased her debt and should she get in over her head and not be able to make the mortgage payments, she risks losing her home and all the equity in it.

Who hasn’t seen the kindly-looking, aging celebrity shilling on TV for his employer- lender’s reverse mortgage product?  Reverse mortgages are aggressively pitched to older individuals who are seeking money to finance a home improvement, pay off a current mortgage, supplement their retirement income, or pay for health care expenses. A typical reverse mortgage allows older homeowners to convert part of the equity in their homes into cash without having to sell their homes or take on additional monthly bills. In a regular mortgage, the homeowner makes payments to the lender. But in a reverse mortgage, the homeowner receives money from the lender and generally does not have to pay it back for as long as he lives in his home. Instead, the loan must be repaid when the homeowner dies, sells the home, or no longer lives there as his principal residence.

The amount of such a loan depends upon the consumer’s age (s/he must be at least 62), the equity in the home, and the interest rate the lender is charging. Among the facts for your clients to consider before applying for a reverse mortgage are:

  • Reverse mortgages are rising-debt loans. This means that interest is added to the loan’s principal balance each month because interest is not paid on a current basis. Therefore, as the interest compounds over time, the amount owed increases.
  • Reverse mortgages and their associated expenses use up some or all the equity in the home, leaving fewer assets for the homeowner and his heirs.
  • Lenders are providing the loan as an investment, which they aim to collect on at a profit, not out of goodwill or charity.

Another lender initiated scam against borrowers is credit insurance packing which occurs during the process of obtaining a mortgage or other loan, whereby the lender includes charges for credit insurance or other “benefits” that the borrower did not request or does not desire, and requests that the borrower sign the documents to close the deal. The fraudulent lender hopes that the borrower will not notice the additional charges that are listed or that s/he will believe that they are part of the loan terms that were originally agreed upon. Thus, the lender can imply that this “benefit” is provided at no extra charge. The lender does not explain in detail the additional cost or obligations. If the borrower agrees to the charge, s/he will be paying for additional fees that may not be required or desired. If the borrower questions the charge and does not want the credit insurance, the lender may attempt to intimidate the borrower; the lender may indicate that to obtain the loan, the loan documents must be rewritten, which may take several days, and that the possibility even exists that the loan may not be approved without the insurance.

Consumers who have financial difficulties and are unable to maintain their monthly mortgage or other loan payments may be faced with lenders who begin threatening foreclosure or repossession. Fraudulent lenders may then approach the consumer with offers to assist in refinancing. The new financing, however, never comes to fruition. To “help,” the fraudulent lender may offer the consumer a temporary solution to prevent foreclosure. In an act of desperation, consumers are lured into deeding their property over to the fraudulent lender with claims that it is only temporary. However, the consumer should be aware that, in the case of a mortgage or automobile, once the lender has the deed or title, the lender owns the property, may borrow against it, and may even sell it. The consumer’s monthly payments become rent payments that come with the possibility of eviction by the lender, as the consumer becomes the fraudulent lender’s tenant.

Finally, a word about balloon payments and title loans.  Lenders offer consumers balloon payment loans, which require low, interest-only payments during the life of the loan, and payment of the entire principal in one lump sum at the end of the loan term.  Consumers are enticed by fraudulent lenders to refinance their loans with a balloon payment loan so that their monthly payments will be low, allowing extra funds for other debts. A fraudulent lender may not explain the loan in its entirety or the hidden terms in the agreement. Without a thorough understanding of this type of agreement, consumers face the possibility of foreclosure at the end of the loan term if the lump-sum repayment of the principle proves to be more than they can afford.

A title loan enables a consumer to borrow against the equity in her motor vehicle. A lender determines the amount eligible to be borrowed based on the market value of the motor vehicle. The lender retains tide to the motor vehicle, as well as a set of keys. If monthly loan payments are not made, the motor vehicle can be repossessed. Consumers must understand the contract terms of the loan to avoid any misunderstanding regarding delinquency and repossession.

As practicing CFE’s we have a responsibility to educate our clients and the general public about fraud schemes in general and about emerging threats in particular.  As the ACFE tells us, an educated public is the best defense we have against all lender frauds both old and new.

The Class Action Machine

Posted by on October 16, 2016 Comments Off on The Class Action Machine

lawsuitThe recent troubles at Wells Fargo raised a number of questions in the mind of one of our Chapter members about the class action lawsuits that seem to immediately follow public announcement of such financially involved frauds.  Specifically, she asked about who among the various classes of defendants in a typical financial fraud case are most likely to get sued after the fact.

As I’m sure most financial professionals know, a class action is a type of lawsuit in which a single representative individual is permitted to sue on behalf of an entire group of similarly situated individuals known as a “class.” A class action theoretically comes about when an aggrieved shareholder (or in Wells Fargo’s case a shareholder or perhaps a type of defrauded account holder) contacts a lawyer and explains that s/he has been harmed. The law then generally permits that single party to sue on behalf of all similar share or account holders. Although the common conceptual justification for class action litigation begins with a single aggrieved affected individual reaching out to a lawyer to seek redress, the reality is somewhat different. As our Chapter member indicated she is aware, shareholder class action litigation tends to be prosecuted by a small number of highly specialized law firms and, over the years, these firms have developed practices and relationships that enable them to take the lead in commencing shareholder litigation almost on their own. A practical consequence is that, within days after issuance of a press release revealing financial fraud, the class action lawyers will normally have their lawsuits already prepared.

The catalyst for commencement of the litigation will often be the company’s initial press release announcing the fraud. Among other things, the lawyers may glean from the press release that accounting irregularities have surfaced, that earlier SEC filings are false, which line items on the financial statements are affected, and the board of directors’ preliminary information as to how far back the accounting irregularities go. With that information in hand, the class action lawyers will quickly extract from their word processors an earlier complaint filed in a similar case and quickly insert the specifics regarding the particular company at hand. In their haste to be the first firm to file a lawsuit, the process of revision is not always completely thorough and factual errors are common in almost all initial filings.

Although an exposition in detail of all the steps involved in such a suit are beyond the scope of this short post, the following are the typical steps that unfold during the process:

  • The company’s initial press release;
  • The company’s receipt of a series of complaints;
  • Production of a single consolidated complaint;
  • Motion to dismiss by the defendant company;
  • Document productions;
  • Depositions;
  • Settlement (if necessary);
  • Trial (almost never).

From the perspective of the board of directors, the result will be that, within several days of the issuance of the company’s initial press release, the company will begin receiving a number of seemingly duplicative lawsuits in which the only significant difference seems to be the name of the representative shareholder seeking to represent the interests of the class. In truth, a shareholder gains no meaningful strategic advantage over the defendants in rushing to be named the class representative. In the end, only one class of similarly situated shareholders will be certified and only one complaint ordinarily will survive.  Rather than trying to get a strategic advantage over the defendants, the interest of a plaintiff in rushing to be named the class representative is to get an advantage over the other plaintiff shareholders—or, more precisely, their lawyers. For a class action plaintiff’s lawyer, having one’s client named the class representative opens the door to the lion’s share of the legal fees.

So, to answer our reader’s question, who are the main candidates most likely to get sued in one of these actions?

  • The company. The corporate entity will almost inevitably be named a defendant. Also named may be a parent company or holding company. The plaintiffs will argue that the corporate entity or entities are responsible for the wrongdoing of their individual officers and directors;
  • Officers who have resigned, been terminated, or placed on leave. It may be that the initial press release will have identified particular officers who have resigned, been terminated by the board, or been placed on paid or unpaid leave. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will infer from any such corporate action the officers’ complicity in wrongdoing;
  • The CEO and the CFO. Prime candidates to be included as defendants are the chief executive officer and the chief financial officer. The plaintiffs will infer from their positions some level of complicity. Also, they will have signed what have now turned out to be incorrect SEC filings, such as a Form 10-K or Forms 10-Q;
  • Particular officers. Beyond the CEO and CFO, other officers may be named as defendants depending on the nature of the fraud (as described in the press release) and a particular officer’s proximity to it. For example, if the fraud involved improper revenue recognition (on fraudulently opened accounts, for example), the plaintiffs may seek to include as a defendant the officer or officers with responsibility in the new account generation area. Similarly, if the fraud involved improprieties at some remote location, those responsible for operations or the financial reporting function of that location may be named;
  • Outside directors. These days, outside directors tend not to be included as defendants. Historically, all outside directors would be named as defendants almost as a matter of course. Congress’s passage of federal securities law tort reform in the mid-1990s, however, has operated as an important impediment to the inclusion of the entire board—at least in the absence of evidence suggesting an individual director’s knowledge or complicity;
  • Underwriters. Where the company has publicly issued stock within the last three years, the underwriters may be included. For the corporate issuer, this is particularly unfortunate insofar as typical underwriting documents will provide for corporate indemnification of the underwriter in the absence of the underwriter’s own wrongdoing;
  • Selling shareholders. An issuance of public stock within the prior three years may also open the door to the inclusion as defendants of shareholders who participated as sellers in the offering. Plaintiffs may seek to show their complicity based on inferences drawn from their natural desire to see the stock price sustained or increased during the period prior to their sale;
  • The outside auditor. Several years ago, inclusion of the outside auditor in an accounting irregularities case occurred as a matter of course. Today, the inclusion of the outside auditor as a defendant, at least in the first complaint, has become less automatic. As with the inclusion of outside directors, the federal securities law tort reform legislation in the mid-1990s erected barriers to naming the outside auditor, at least without particularized facts showing auditor complicity. However, the auditor may not be left out forever. An important objective of the plaintiffs will be assembling detailed evidence sufficient to make claims against the auditor stick.

As to the outcome of these type of suits, in the great majority of cases, the parties will come (sooner or later) to a negotiated settlement dollar number.  A canned form of a settlement agreement will emerge from the files of the plaintiff’s law firm marked up to meet the circumstance of the present case and signed, effectively ending the process.

Our thanks to our Chapter member for a thought provoking question!  Please, keep them coming!

Mining the General Ledger

Posted by on September 13, 2016 Comments Off on Mining the General Ledger

miningI was chatting via Skype over this last week-end with a former officer of our Chapter who left the Richmond area many years ago to found his own highly successful forensic accounting practice on the west coast.  During our conversation, he remarked that he never fails to intensively indoctrinate trainees new to his organization in an understanding of the primary importance of the general ledger in any investigation of financial fraud.  With a good sense of those areas of the financial statements most vulnerable to fraud, and with whatever clues the investigative team has gleaned from an initial set of interviews focusing on those accounting entries initially arousing suspicion, he tells his trainees that they’re ready to turn their attention to a place with the potential to provide a cornucopia of useful information. That place is the client firm’s own accounting system general ledger.

My old colleague pointed out that for a fraud examiner or forensic accountant on the search for fraud, there are several great things about the general ledger. One is that virtually all sophisticated financial reporting systems have one. Another is that, as the primary accounting tool of the company, it reflects every transaction the company has entered.

He went on to say that unless the fraud has been perpetrated simply through last-minute topside adjustments, it’s captured in the general ledger somewhere. What’s vital is knowing how, and where, to look. The important thing to keep in mind is the way the ACFE tells us that financial fraud starts and grows. That guidance says that ledger entries entered at particular points of time — say, the final days leading up to the end of a quarter — are more likely to reflect falsified information than entries made at earlier points. Beyond that, a fraudulent general ledger entry in the closing days of a quarter may reflect unusual characteristics. For example, the amounts involved say, having been determined, as they were, by the need to cross a certain numerical threshold rather than by a legitimate business transaction may by their very nature look a bit strange.  Perhaps they’re larger than might be expected or rounded off. It also may be that unusual corporate personnel were involved—executives who would not normally be involved in general ledger entries. Or, if the manipulating executives are not thinking far enough ahead, the documentation behind the journal entries themselves may not be complete or free from suspicion. For example, a non-routine, unusually large ledger entry with rounded numbers that was atypically made at the direction of a senior executive two days before the end of a quarter should arouse some suspicion.

Indeed, once a suspicious general ledger entry has been identified, determining its legitimacy can be fairly straightforward. Sometimes it might involve simply a conversation with the employee who physically made the entry.  My colleague went on to point out that, in his experience, senior executives seeking to perpetrate financial fraud often suffer from a significant handicap: they don’t know how to make entries to the accounting system. To see that a fraudulent entry is made, they have to ask some employee sitting at a computer screen somewhere to do it for them, someone who, if properly trained, may want to fully understand the support for a non-routine transaction coming from an unusual source. Of course, if the employee’s boss simply orders him or her to make the entry, resistance may be awkward. But, if suspicions are aroused, the direction to enter the entry may stick in the employee’s memory, giving the employee the ability to later describe in convincing detail exactly how the ledger entry came to be made. Or, concerned about the implications and the appearance of his own complicity, the employee may include with the journal entry an explanation that captures his skepticism. The senior executive directing the entry may be oblivious to all this. S/he thinks she has successfully adjusted the general ledger to create the needed earnings. Little does she know that within the ledger entry the data-entering employee has embedded incriminating evidence for the forensic accountants to find.

The general ledger may reflect as well large transactions that simply by their nature are suspicious. The investigators may want to ask the executive responsible about such a transaction’s business purpose, the underlying terms, the timing, and the nature of the negotiations. Transaction documentation might be compared to the general ledger’s entry to make sure that nothing was left out or changed. If feasible, the forensic accountants may even want to reach out to the entry’s counter-party to explore whether there are any unrecorded terms in side letters or otherwise undisclosed aspects of the transaction.

As we all know, an investigation will not ordinarily stop with clues gleaned from the general ledger. For example, frequently a useful step is to assess the extent to which a company has accounted for significant or suspicious transactions in accordance with their underlying terms. Such scrutiny may include a search for undisclosed terms, such as those that may be included in side letters or pursuant to oral agreements. In searching for such things, the investigators will seek to cast a wide net and may try to coax helpful information from knowledgeable company personnel outside the accounting function. As our former Central Virginia Chapter officer put it, “I like to talk to the guys on the loading dock. They’ll tell you anything.”

As I’m sure most readers of this blog are aware, while such forensic accounting techniques, and there are many others, can be undertaken independently of what employee interviews turn up, usually the two will go hand in hand. For example, an interview of one employee might yield suspicions about a particular journal entry, which is then dug out of the accounting system and itself investigated. Or an automated search of the general ledger may yield evidence of a suspicious transaction, resulting in additional interviews of employees. Before long, the investigative trail may look like a roadmap of Washington DC. Clues are discovered, cross-checked against other information, and explored further. Employees are examined on entries and, as additional information surfaces, examined again. As the investigation progresses, shapes start to appear in the fog. Patterns emerge. And those executives not being completely candid look increasingly suspicious.

So, with thanks to our good friend for sharing, in summary, if there is predication of a fraud, what sorts of things might a thorough forensic examination of the general ledger reveal?

–The journal entries that the company recorded to implement the fraud;

–The dates on which the company recorded fraudulent transactions;

–The sources for the amounts recorded (e.g., an automated sub-accounting system, such as purchasing or treasury, versus a manually prepared journal entry);

–The company employee responsible for entering the journal entries into the accounting system;

–Adjusting journal entries that may have been recorded.

Financing in the Dark

Posted by on July 30, 2016 Comments Off on Financing in the Dark

money-laundering_1A reader of our last blog post on risk assessment, a CFE employed as an internal auditor by a large overseas financial services firm, has been asked, (in light of the Panama Papers), and as a member of an evaluation team, to perform a review of the controls comprising his company’s anti-money laundering program.  I thought his various questions about ACFE guidance on money laundering might furnish interesting matter for a blog post.  The ACFE has long identified money laundering, including terrorist financing, as a global problem.

Due to government concerns globally, laws have been enacted in countries such as the United States (the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Canada (Proceeds of Crime, Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act), and Australia (Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, 2006) to combat money laundering and financing of terrorist activities. Such legislation embodies recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a Paris-based intergovernmental body formed in 1989 by the Group of Seven industrialized nations. As a result, financial institutions in many countries have taken initiatives to implement appropriate policies and infrastructure for ensuring compliance with applicable money laundering requirements and practices. One such step has been to implement anti -money laundering/ counter-terrorist financing programs based on FATF recommendations.  Our reader’s company is to be commended for undertaking the review since independent testing by knowledgeable assurance professionals (including CFE’s) is a critical component in ensuring existing anti-money laundering programs remain robust and fully aligned with regulatory requirements. The testing of these programs should be cohesive and integrated and include a well-defined strategy that takes a risk-based, enterprise wide perspective.

According to the ACFE, an effective anti-money laundering program includes:

–Appointment of a senior officer responsible for ensuring risks are understood, addressed, and mitigated enterprise-wide;
–Development of formal policies, procedures, and controls that are aligned with Federal and local regulations;
–Implementation of a risk-based approach for identifying risks by client, geography, product, and delivery channels;
–Implementation of a program of dynamic rules-based transaction monitoring for purposes of identifying and reporting suspicious activities;
–Implementation of training programs customized to specific functions and activities;
–Independent, periodic testing of the program.

The ACFE stresses that to be successful it’s necessary that the review team understand the organization’s products and delivery channels as well as its types of clients and their geographic location(s). It’s also necessary to understand the company’s organizational structure, infrastructure, policies, procedures, and controls for mitigating money laundering and terrorist financing risks. Also as part of the audit strategy, auditors should list all anti-money laundering regulatory requirements in the countries in which the organization does business. Once these components are clearly defined and understood, a risk profile can be developed (using the interviewing strategy featured in our last post) to ascertain risk levels and enable the creation of appropriate audit programs, staffing, and overall management of the review assignment. Needless to say, the audit strategy should always be formally approved by the organization’s chief audit executive.

The temptation to use boilerplate or template audit programs should be minimized by the development of tailored audit programs fitted to the specific nature of the business process being audited. One of the biggest challenges in developing such audit programs for money laundering is determining appropriate sampling methodologies for performing the required testing and validation. Inappropriate sampling will lead to incorrect and unsupportable conclusions. Sampling criteria and attributes must be defined clearly and be consistent with audit objectives. Once again, the audit manager should approve the sampling methodology before execution.

Our reader’s audit team will need to verify compliance with local regulations, which is not an easy task due to the high transaction volumes characteristic of industries like his. However, in most financial organizations, transaction-based processes must be automated to work and queries can be developed to create exception reports where deviations from expected outcomes exist. Out reader asked for examples of such automated exception reports and some common ones recommended by the ACFE are:

–Cash deposits of US $10,000 or greater where the required regulatory reporting has not been completed. (This threshold applies to Canada and the United States and may vary in other countries);
–Transactions with countries where trade sanctions exist;
–Industry codes listing clients in high risk industries to assess the level of enhanced due diligence performed;
–List of employees who have not completed required anti-money laundering training;
–List of clients with Post Office box addresses;
–List of clients with missing Taxpayer Identification Numbers;
–List of wire transfers from accounts owned by governments into accounts of private investment companies and politically exposed persons;
–Validating that “know your client” and customer identification requirements are compliant with local regulatory requirements;
–Validating that enhanced due diligence is performed on high-risk businesses.

Business culture has traditionally revolved around management of risks relative to sales, markets, economic trends, and reputation. Only relatively recently has regulatory risk as it relates to money laundering requirements received more intense scrutiny. Regulators have adopted a zero tolerance position, as evidenced by penalties against financial institutions for noncompliance with the ever growing body of legislation.  Financial institutions like our reader’s are considered an integral defense in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. It’s thus imperative that these organizations implement effective independent testing programs to assess the quality of controls relative to their anti-money laundering programs.  Sound independent testing by assurance professionals who have in-depth knowledge of fraud and regulation, as well as of risks, controls, and business processes in general is considered a key control within any organization. Fraud risk assessment review work of the anti-money launder business process provides management with the necessary intelligence for proactively managing deficiencies and ensuring that a well-aligned top-to-bottom control environment with appropriate resources and infrastructure is in place for mitigating money laundering risk.

Because fraudsters and criminals are creative and money laundering methods and techniques change constantly in response to evolving countermeasures, a useful reference for CFE’s and for auditors of all kinds is always the ACFE which provides live seminars and on-line training insights into emerging money laundering related threats as well as on-going suggestions for new areas for investigation and testing.

Stuffing the Channel

Posted by on June 25, 2016 Comments Off on Stuffing the Channel

e-cigaretsWe received an e-mail last week from a follower of our Central Virginia Chapter’s LinkedIn group, an investigator employed by a public accounting firm.  Her firm has just completed investigating a case of channel stuffing involving e-cigarettes and her inquiry had to do with investigative techniques generally used in the detection (and future prevention) of such frauds.

Channel stuffing is a practice that’s often a red flag component of a wider revenue recognition fraud.  According to generally accepted accounting principles, revenue should be recognized when the earnings process is complete and an exchange has taken place. As I’m sure you all remember from Accounting 101, for a sale to be consummated, the rights of ownership must pass from the seller to the buyer.  The rights of ownership include:

— Possession of an unrestricted right to the use of the property
— Title
— Assumption of liabilities
— Transferability of ownership
— Insurance coverage
— Risk of loss

Generally, revenue is recognized in the accounting period when the sale is complete – that is, when title passes from the seller to the buyer. The transfer of the risks and rewards of ownership from seller to buyer completes the sale and is final upon fulfillment of obligations surrounding the sale. Goods must exist in order for the title to pass from seller to buyer, and they also must be identified to the particular sales agreement. Identification occurs when the inventory specified in the sales contract is identified by the seller. Premature revenue recognition occurs when the company records a sale on the books even though the criteria for recognizing revenue have not yet been met. This makes the current-period financial statements look healthier and cheats the following period out of the sale.

Recognizing revenues prematurely or accelerating revenues into the current period can involve recording revenues when goods or services are still due, shipping merchandise before the sale is finalized and holding the books open.

Channel stuffing has proven itself an especially complex area of revenue recognition abuse for fraud investigation practitioners to investigate; its attracted the SEC’s attention of late and been associated with multiple wider fraud schemes.  Channel stuffing refers to the sale of an unusually large quantity of a product to distributors, who are encouraged to overbuy through the use of deep discounts and/or extended payment terms. This practice is especially attractive in industries with high gross margins (e.g., e-cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, perfume, soda concentrate, and branded consumer goods) because it can increase short-term earnings. The downside is that stealing from the next period’s sales makes it harder to achieve sales goals in the next period, sometimes leading to increasingly disruptive levels of more channel stuffing and ultimately a restatement of the financials themselves.

Although orders are received, the terms of the orders might raise some questions about the collectability of accounts receivable, and there may be side agreements that grant a right of return, effectively turning the sales into consignment sales. There might also be a greater risk of returns for certain products, such as e-cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, if they cannot be sold before their shelf life expires. As a result, identified instances of channel stuffing should always be closely scrutinized since, in certain circumstances, it might be an element of a wider fraud scheme or constitute fraud in itself.

But to answer to our LinkedIn reader’s inquiry, there’re a number of investigative inquires for the investigator to make that the ACFE has declared effective in detecting premature revenue recognition schemes.

— Were the accounting records for the period held open after the books were closed in order to record sales of goods shipped in the following period?
— Were invoices for merchandise shipped to customers in the last couple of weeks of the accounting period examined for unusually large sales? Unusually large sales might indicate a company is trying to “make” the quarter by prematurely recognizing revenue for sales that have yet to be shipped or services that have not yet been rendered to the customer.
— Were there any sales to customers in the last month of the period at terms more favorable than in prior months? More lenient, favorable terms might be established at the end of the period to justify the recording of a sale that might not otherwise qualify as a sale during the rest of the year. Again, this is an example of a company trying to “make” the quarter.
— In the final month of the accounting period, especially the last couple of weeks, were there any large, unusual revenue entries in the sales journal that were not substantiated by customer-signed acceptances or shipping documents? Unusual revenue entries without proof of shipment or customer acceptance might indicate that an exchange of title has not occurred, which is an essential precursor to the recognition of a sale.
— Were controls in place and sufficient, and did the company have an anonymous tip line? Weak controls can foster an environment conducive to premature revenue recognition; an anonymous tip line can make it easier to report possible abuses. If an anonymous tip line is in place, has it been checked to see if a report has been made regarding a possible violation?

Finally, here as some procedures an examiner can use to test the validity of sales transactions. These procedures might be performed in light of the preceding questions to help fraud examiners determine whether revenues meet the revenue recognition criteria and are properly or improperly recognized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

— Observe and inquire. Observe and ask about internal controls in place, particularly segregation of duties over order entry, shipping, billing, accounts receivable detail, and general ledger access. One person should not be able to process a transaction from start to finish.
— Review document sequence. Review the accounting records for numerical sequence of shipping documents and sales invoices. Gaps in the sequence of sales invoices or shipping documents might indicate documents that are hidden due to fraudulent disposition.
— Inspect reconciliations. Inspect reconciliations of quantities shipped to quantities billed. In early revenue recognition schemes, goods often are billed before they are shipped; therefore, quantities of goods shipped would not reconcile to goods billed as revenue.
— Select sample of sales transactions. Select a sample of sales transactions from the sales journal, obtain the supporting documents, and inspect the sales orders for approval of credit and terms. Compare the details (e.g., customer, quantities, prices) among sales orders, shipping documents, and sales invoices. Trace the prices on the sales invoices to the approved price lists. Recompute the extensions on the sales invoices.
— Examine shipping costs. Compare shipping costs of prior periods to subsequent periods. Shipping costs tend to be higher at year-end for companies that recognize revenue prematurely by shipping merchandise before the sale is finalized.
— Perform a sales cut-off test. This procedure is beneficial in detecting schemes where accounting records are held open after the year-end close in order to continue recording sales made in the following period. The fraud examiner might select sales invoices prior to year-end and subsequent to year-end, and then examine the supporting documentation, noting whether the sales are recorded in the correct accounting period. For instance, twenty sales invoices are selected from the last ten days of the year and the first ten days of the following year. The CFE reviews the documentation supporting the sales transactions and then concludes whether the sales were recorded in the proper period.
— Confirm sales. Send confirmations to customers to verify that the sales existed as of the date indicated by the company. Confirm with the customers the dates the goods were ordered, the dates the customers received the goods, the dollar amounts of the sales, and the quantities purchased.

Thanks to our LinkedIn follower!  Since revenue recognition schemes are fairly common components of the fraudster’s bag of tricks every fraud examiner should have the tools to help client’s effectively investigate and, hopefully, to prevent them.