Accounting scandals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last night a group of us were talking about various accounting scandals. In some ways remarkable at how few remembered some of them. Thus when I saw this (via MoneyScience) today , it was perfect timing.

Accounting scandals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Accounting scandals, or corporate accounting scandals, are political and business scandals which arise with the disclosure of misdeeds by trusted executives of large public corporations. Such misdeeds typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of corporate assets or underreporting the existence of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations or affiliates.

In public companies, this type of 'creative accounting' can amount to fraud and investigations are typically launched by government oversight agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States.

Scandals are often only the 'tip of the iceberg'. They represent the visible catastrophic failures. Note that much abuse can be completely legal or quasi legal."

The article goes on to have a list with links to many of their stories.

Related articles

• A Detailed Look at the Enron Accounting Scandal (brighthub.com)