In the aftermath of corporate scandals and the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), the audit committee is vested with greater authority to oversee fi nancial reporting and the appropriation of assets. As a result, the audit committee is responsible for adequate supervision and reporting and for responding to:
• fraud in a fi nancial statement audit;
• actual, perceived or potential confl icts of interest;
• anonymous tips and complaints; and
• through interaction with general counsel, compliance matters such as those that relate to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Attachment II.
Required:
• Was the scope of the independent investigation sufficient? Why or why not?
• If the audit engagement team
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The chameleonlike nature of fraud requires a customized response to the highest-risk areas of individual and organizational fraud. Efforts to mitigate the risk of defalcation, for example, may differ from efforts to counter the risk of management fraud.
1
Institute of Internal Auditors, American Institute of Certifi ed Public Accountants and Association of Certifi ed Fraud Examiners, Managing the Business Risk of Fraud: A Practical Guide (2008), 5
2 Institute of Internal Auditors, The Professional Practices Framework (Altamonte Springs, FL: IIA, 2009)
2 Managing fraud risk: The audit committee perspective Fraud in a fi nancial statement audit
From the auditor’s perspective, the Auditing Standards Board of the AICPA describes fraud in this way:
Fraud is a broad legal concept and auditors do not make legal determinations of whether fraud has occurred. Rather, the auditor’s interest specifi cally relates to acts that result in a material misstatement of the fi nancial statements. The primary factor that distinguishes fraud from error is whether the underlying action that results in the misstatement of the fi nancial statements is intentional or unintentional.
For purposes of the Statement, fraud is an intentional act that results in a material
misstatement
Fraud is defined as the intentional deception or misrepresentation of facts that can result in unauthorized benefit or payment. Abuse is
Appendix A.2 also lists several factors that could provide opportunities for management/employees to commit fraud. One factor that could lead to fraud is if, “There is ineffective monitoring of management as a result of: domination of management by a single person or small group without compensating controls.” The auditors should have taken notice of the lack of controls and segregation of duties with respect to Phar-Mor’s
According to Criminal-Law-Lawyer-Source.com “Fraud is the act of deliberately deceiving another individual or group in order to secure an unfair or unlawful personal gain at the expense of that party.” Fraud may be either civil or criminal offenses and many times
With different industry definitions and viewpoints, fraud can be a tough issue for audit committee members to grasp for oversight purposes. The legal obligations of audit committee members have intensified because their standard duty of care and loyalty to the entity has increased in light of management fraud activities.
Professional auditing standards discuss the three key “conditions” that are typically present when a financial fraud occurs and identify a lengthy list of “fraud risk factors.”
CAS 300 requires auditors to their audit using a risk based model where the nature, timing and extent of audit procedures are based on the assessed risk of material misstatement. Pickett (2006) argues that for audits to be effective and efficient, much of the audit effort should be focused on areas that are considered to pose the highest audit risk. Additional audit procedures should be linked to individual audit assertions whereas other audit procedures need to be performed as and when needed. Thus, for an audit plan to be put in place, it is necessary for an auditor to come up with a risk profile of the client comprising an understanding of the business operating by the audit client, assess business risk and also perform its preliminary analytical review.
AICPA Code of Professional Conduct principles prevents vises such as fraud that are experienced in accountancy field. Audit is the best measure of the effect of the fraud that are imposed to investors by accountants. The relationship of the investors and account holders are supposed to be affirmed through auditing to ensure accounting principles are upheld(Weirich, Pearson, & Churyk, 2010). Improper loss of the funds through propagation of the accountant officer should be treated as fraud and criminal activity that should lead to prosecution. Therefore, the paper seeks to relate two fraud cases that have been audited and presenting AICPA Code of
Fraud is any and all means a person uses to gain an unfair advantage over another person.
Under the Security Act of 1933 and 1944, any individual that willfully filed untrue statements should be penalized. Auditors acting behalf of the public’s interest should make sure the company’s financial statements are not misleading. All the testing and auditing procedures are to verify that the number on the financial statements, and audit testing should be supported by substantial evidence. When auditors took their responsibility for and but did not show their competence for work, they should be heavily fined because their carelessness resulted the investors making a bad decision. Furthermore, if the auditors did not take their responsibility and showed no work to support their opinions should be charged as gross negligence with a heavy fine and license taken away. If it comes down to fraud, auditors should definitely face criminal charges along with their auditing company, and their license should be taken away
The auditing firm has been in engagement with the company throughout the period when the fraud was being committed. One of the common and clear indicators of possible fraud was the company’s cash flow statement. The company experienced positive growth in its profits from the year 1996 through to the year 1998. However, a close analysis of the cash flow statement shows that the company had experienced negative figures of cash flow from both operating and investing activities and positive cash flow from financing activities which would not sufficiently offset the negative cash flows from operating and investing. It is therefore evident
“Audit committee members or their agents may proactively examine areas, functions, and personnel where collusive fraud risk is reasonably likely to be perpetrated,” (Zmags). The search for fraud, even if performed in the same location multiple times, may continue until the audit committee feels confident that they have ruled out the probability that fraud is prevalent. One of the biggest risks of fraud is management override of controls, requiring the extensive search for risk in, “journal entries and other adjustments and reviewing accounting estimates for possible biases that could result in material misstatements,” (Nysscpa).
1) Anna Thomas committed a fraudulent act by making personal charges and cash withdrawals on Rusher Automotive’s credit card. The accounting profession believes there are three conditions necessary for fraudulent behavior. (See Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99, Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit. For additional explanation, you may want to review Buckhoff [2001].)
Fraud is defined as a deliberate misrepresentation that causes a person or business to suffer damages, often in the form of monetary losses through deception or concealment. And Occupational Fraud as defined by the ACFE is the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets. Traditional fraud triangle theory by Donald Cressey explains that propensity of fraud occurring in an organization lies on three critical elements which are Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization.
The authors opted to make their refinements in two ways. One was to assess the component approaches and assumptions of previous study approaches and then to replicate what was done in those studies using a second refinement of a new financial kernel that was proposed to be more amendable to publicly available knowledge. The goal of their efforts was to generate the best predictive tool against audit fraud while controlling
The primary responsibility of the audit committee is to serve as an independent and objective body to monitor a company’s financial reporting process and internal control system (BRC, 1999). In order to properly serve one’s role as an independent audit committee member, one must be free from all personal connections and/or material financial connections to the company or the company’s key executives (Persons, 2009, peer reviewed). A typical expectation of audit committee effectiveness is that independent audit committee members or directors would warrant a lower likelihood of financial restatements. This expectation is supported through prior investigation of empirical evidence (Abbott et al., 2000, peer reviewed; Beasley et al., 2000, peer reviewed). Specifically, Abbott et al (2004, peer reviewed) and Persons (2009, peer reviewed) both find a negative correlation between audit committee independence and the likelihood of financial reporting restatement. These studies support the idea that an independent audit committee contributes positively to the quality of financial reporting and effective monitoring of internal controls.