会计造假及其监测的当前趋势研究【外文翻译】.doc

1、本科毕业论文（设计）外 文 翻 译外文题目 Current Trends in Fraud and its Detection 外文出处 Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective 外文作者 Albrecht W.Steve，Albrecht Chad，Albrecht Conan C原文：Current Trends in Fraud and its DetectionINTRODUCTIONExecutives and employees of most organizations conduct business with int

2、egrity. Their financial statements are transparent and represent the financial state of the organization. However, some succumb to pressures and opportunities to make their companies look better than they really are. These individuals often seek to unduly enrich themselves in their stewardship roles

3、, increase their financial status, or gain the respect of others through a dishonest image. While it may seem that fraud is centered in certain industries, this small minority of dishonest people exists in every profession and industry.Society has long held that the protectorthe “public watchdog (Un

4、ited States v. Arthur Young & Co., 1984)”against this dishonest minority in public companies is the financial statement auditor. In the United States, Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), explained an auditors role this way: “Americas auditors were given a

5、franchise by the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 to provide the public with accurate audited statements of companies . . . And their mission, the reason for all of that, was to protect the public investor from financial fraud (PBS, 2002).”Over the last decade, there have been numerous frauds discov

6、ered in companies throughout the world. These frauds include Enron, WorldCom, Cendant, Adelphia, Parmalat, Royal Ahold, Vivendi, and SK Global. In most cases, it was alleged that the auditors should have detected the frauds and, as a result, they were sued for performing negligent audits. In order t

7、o determine whether auditors should be held liable for fraud, it is important to review why these large scale frauds occurred and the legislation and rules that have been instituted since their occurrence. In this article, we discuss the role of a financial statement audit and whether or not auditor

8、s should be held responsible for financial statement fraud. We describe why fraud occurs and the “perfect storm” that led to the large-scale accounting scandals of the past decade. We review U.S. fraud standards and regulations, new exchange rules by both the NYSE and NASDAQ, and new regulations und

9、er the Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. Finally, we evaluate whether these new standards, rules, and acts are sufficient to reduce fraud in the future.WHY FRAUD OCCURSFraud researchers have found three elements common to all frauds. These three elements of the fraud triangle are (1) perceived pressure, (2

10、) perceived opportunity, and (3) some way to rationalize the fraud as acceptable and consistent with ones personal code of ethics (Albrecht et al., 2006a). Whether the dishonest act involves fraud against a company, such as employee embezzlement, or fraud on behalf of a company, such as management f

11、raud, these three elements are always present. Figure 1 illustrates the fraud triangle.Every fraud perpetrator faces some kind of perceived pressure. Most pressures involve a financial need, although nonfinancial pressures such as the need to report results better than actual performance, frustratio

12、n with work, or even a challenge to beat the system, can also motivate fraud. Note that this element is perceived pressure, not necessarily real pressure. Pressures perceived by one individual, such as a gambling addiction, may not be pressures to another individual. Examples of perceived financial

13、pressures that can motivate fraud on behalf of a company (i.e., financial statement fraud) are financial losses, falling sales, failure to meet Wall Streets earnings expectations, or the inability to compete with other companies.Fraud perpetrators must also have a perceived opportunity that allows t

14、he fraud act. Even with intense perceived pressures, executives who believe they will be caught and punished rarely commit fraud (Albrecht et al., 2006b). Executives who believe they have an opportunity to commit and/or conceal fraud often give in to their perceived pressures. Perceived opportunitie

15、s to commit management fraud include factors such as a weak board of directors or inadequate internal controls. Finally, fraud perpetrators must have some way to rationalize their actions as acceptable. For corporate executives, rationalizations to commit fraud might include thoughts such as “we nee

16、d to keep the stock price high,” “all companies use aggressive accounting practices,” or “it is for the good of the company.”These three elements of the fraud triangle are interactive. With fraud, the greater the perceived opportunity or the more intense the pressure, the less rationalization it tak

17、es for someone to commit fraud. Likewise, the more dishonest a perpetrator is and the easier it is for him or her to rationalize deviant behavior, the less opportunity and/or pressure it takes to motivate fraud.REASON RECENT LARGE-SCALE FRAUDS OCCURREDThe fraud triangle provides insight into why rec

18、ent financial statement frauds occurred. In addition to the factors that motivate a person to commit fraud, there were several specific elements that led to the largescale frauds of the past decade (Albrecht et al., 2004). These elements contributed to a perfect storm that led to the massive frauds

19、of the last few years. The first element of this perfect storm was the masking of many existing problems and unethical actions by the expanding economies of the 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, most businesses appeared to be highly profitable, including many new “dot-com” companies that were

20、 testing new and unproven (and many times unprofitable) business models. The economy was booming, and investment was high. In this period of perceived success, people made nonsensical investment and other decisions.The advent of investing over the Internet for a few dollars per trade brought many ne

21、w, inexperienced people to the stock market. It is now clear that many of the frauds revealed since 2002 were actually being committed during the boom years, but that the apparent booming economy hid the fraudulent behavior.The booming economy also caused executives, board members, and stockholders

22、to believe that their companies were more successful than they actually were and that their companies success was primarily a result of good management. In addition, research has shown that extended periods of prosperity can reduce a firms motivation to comprehend the causes of success, raising the

23、likelihood of faulty attributions (Sundaramurthy and Lewis, 2003). The second element of the perfect storm was the moral decay that had been occurring in the United States and around the world. Political correctness did many good things for society, but it also veiled dishonesty in new language that

24、 allowed some to rationalize fraudulent behavior. Many role models in sports, politics, and movies were no longer examples of honesty and integrity. While some may argue that role models have been dishonest or immoral throughout history, the significantly increased access in recent decades to their

25、behavior through widespread media coverage, Internet sites, blogs, and general transparency affected the existing workforce and the young alike. Whatever measure of integrity one uses, dishonesty appears to be increasing. The third element of the perfect storm was misplaced executive incentives. For

26、 example, agency theorys solution of aligning executive pay with company performance was practiced to the extreme in many cases ( Jensen and Meckling, 1976). Executives of many fraudulent companies were endowed with hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options and/or restricted stock that placed

27、 more pressure on keeping the stock price rising than on reporting financial results accurately. In many cases, this stock-based compensation far exceeded executives salary-based compensation. The attention of many CEOs shifted from managing the firm to managing the stock price. At the cost of count

28、less billions of dollars, managing the stock price all too often turned into fraudulently managing the financials.The fourth element of the perfect stormand one closely related to the lastwas the often unachievable expectations of Wall Street analysts that primarily targeted short-term behavior. Com

29、pany boards and management, generally lacking alternative performance metrics, used comparisons with the stock price of “similar” firms and attainment of analyst expectations as important defacto performance measures. These stock-based incentives compounded the pressure induced by analyst expectatio

30、ns. Each quarter, analysts, often coached by the companies themselves, forecasted each companys earnings per share (EPS). The forecasts alone drove price movements of the shares, embedding the expectations in the price of a companys stock. Executives knew that the penalty for missing the Street esti

31、mate was severeeven falling short of expectations by a small amount, despite otherwise strong performance, might drop the companys stock price by a considerable amount.The fifth element in the perfect storm was the large amounts of debt and leverage held by each of these fraudulent companies. This d

32、ebt placed tremendous financial pressure on executives to not only have high earnings to offset high interest costs but also to report high earnings to meet debt and other covenants. For example, Enrons derivatives-related liabilities increased from $1.8 billion to $10.5 billion during 2000 alone. S

33、imilarly, WorldCom had more than $100 billion in debt when it filed historys largest bankruptcy. During 2002 alone, 186 public companies, including World-Com, Enron, Adelphia, and Global Crossing,recorded $368 billion in debt filed for bankruptcy (Portland Business Journal, 2003).The sixth element o

34、f the perfect storm was the nature of U.S. accounting rules. In contrast to accounting practices in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are much more rule-based than principles-based.4 If a client chose a particular questiona

35、ble method of accounting that was not specifically prohibited by GAAP, it was hard for auditors or others to argue that the client couldnt use that accounting method. The existing general principles already contained within GAAP notwithstanding, when auditors and other advisors sought to create comp

36、etitive advantages by identifying and exploiting possible loopholes, it became harder to make a convincing case that a particular accounting treatment was prohibited when it “wasnt against the rules.” Professional judgment lapsed as the general principles already contained within GAAP and SEC regula

37、tions were ignored or minimized. The result was that rather than deferring to existing, more general rules, specific rules (or the lack of specific rules) were exploited for new, often complex financial arrangements, as justification to decide what was or was not an acceptable accounting practice.Co

38、nsider the case of Enron. Even if Andersen had argued that Enrons Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) werent appropriate, it would have been impossible for Andersen to make the case that they were against any specific rules. Some have suggested that one of the reasons it took so long to get plea bargain

39、s or indictments in the Enron case was because it wasnt immediately clear whether GAAP or any laws had actually been broken.A seventh element of the perfect fraud storm was the opportunistic behavior of some CPA firms. In some cases, accounting firms used audits as loss leaders to establish relation

40、ships with companies so they could sell more lucrative consulting services. The rapid growth of the consulting practices of the Big 5 accounting firms, which was much higher than the growth of other consulting firms, attested to the fact that it is much easier to sell consulting services to existing

41、 audit clients than to new clients. In many cases, audit fees were much smaller than consulting fees for the same clients, and accounting firms felt little conflict between independence and opportunities for increased profits. In particular, these alternative services allowed some auditors to lose t

42、heir focus and become business advisors rather than auditors. This is especially true of Andersen; it had spent considerable energy building its consulting practice only to see that practice split off into a separate firm (now called Accenture). Privately, several Andersen partners admitted that the

43、 surviving Andersen firm and some of its partners had vowed to “out consult” the firm that separated from them.The eighth element of the perfect storm was greed by executives, investment banks, commercial banks, and investors. Each of these groups benefited from the strong economy, the high level of

44、 lucrative transactions, and the apparently high profits of companies. None of them wanted to accept bad news. As a result, they sometimes ignored negative news and entered into unwise transactions.5 For example, in the Enron case, various commercial and investment banks made hundreds of millions fr

45、om Enrons lucrative investment banking transactions, on top of the tens of millions in loan interest and fees. None of these firms alerted investors about derivative or other underwriting problems at Enron. Similarly, in October 2001, after several executives had abandoned Enron and negative news ab

46、out Enron was reaching the public, 16 of 17 security analysts covering Enron still rated the company a “strong buy” or “buy”. Enrons outside law firms were also making high profits from Enrons transactions. These firms also failed to correct or disclose any problems related to the derivatives and sp

47、ecial purpose entities, but in fact helped draft the requisite associated legal documentation. Finally, the three major credit rating agencies, Moodys, Standard & Poors and Fitch/IBCwho all received substantial fees from Enron also did nothing to alert investors of pending problems. Amazingly, just

48、weeks prior to Enrons bankruptcy filingafter most of the negative news was out and Enrons stock was trading for $3 per shareall three agencies still gave investment grade ratings to Enrons debt.Finally, the ninth element of the perfect storm was three types of educator failures. First, educators had

49、 not provided sufficient ethics training to students. By not forcing students to face realistic ethical dilemmas in the classroom, graduates were ill-equipped to deal with the real ethical dilemmas they faced in the business world. In one allegedly fraudulent scheme, for example, participants included virtually the entire senior management of the company, including but not limited to its former chairman and chief executive officer, its former president, two former chief financial offic