The Top Forensic Accounting Tools to Grow Your Practice

As forensic accounting continues to be among the most in-demand client services, firms who are mulling the addition of a forensics unit need to have the most effective and complete "toolbox" to launch their practices. Hear from one of the country’s foremost experts as he tells you what you'll need to launch a forensics practice and how to operate one that's both effective and profitable.

Join Darrell Dorrell, a founding partner of financialforensics, a boutique forensic accounting practice, and Bill Carlino, editor-in-chief of Accounting Today, for this informative presentation, free at the WebCPA Virtual Trade Show. The event will be live and listeners will have an opportunity to submit questions throughout the presentation.

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Siemens widens corruption inquiry

The German electronics and engineering conglomerate broadens its investigation into a possible €1 billion slush fund

Siemens, the electronics and engineering group, has been forced to expand radically its investigation of a giant slush fund in what could become Europe’s largest corruption case.

The German press has suggested that €1 billion (£677 million) in improper payments is being investigated.

The venerable German conglomerate has been at the centre of a corruption scandal since it emerged last year that €420 million had been fraudulently entered on to the company’s books as payments for consulting services linked to the group’s telecoms equipment division.

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Department of Justice is right to investigate BAE Systems

The British government was mistaken if it thought last December’s shabby decision to drop its investigation into alleged corruption around the £43bn Al-Yamamah fighter export deal with Saudi Arabia would end the matter.

The US Department of Justice has decided to launch its own probe into whether BAE Systems, the British defence contractor that is also a large supplier to the Pentagon, has violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That decision shows the UK government’s arguments for suspending its investigation – that it would wreck a vital national security relationship with the Saudis and cost thousands of jobs – for what they are: specious realpolitik and economic excuses.

Al-Yamamah was never just an export order. First signed in 1985, after a vigorous competition against French Mirage jets, it served a multitude of purposes for both sides. It was a way for Saudi Arabia to spend some oil revenues in the west and for Margaret Thatcher, then British prime minister, to boast of jobs secured in Britain’s defence industry. It was an instrument of cold war security politics agreed by governments, not arms companies.

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French probe buy-out collusion

The French financial regulator is investigating suspected collusion between hedge funds and private equity designed to force listed companies to accept a buy-out.

The Autorité des Marchés Financiers is looking at several cases where it fears hedge funds acted as a front for buy-out firms. The fear is that activist funds pushed managements into putting companies up for sale, without disclosing advance agreements to sell stakes to private equity groups, which would then gain a significant advantage in an auction.

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Forensic Audits: Got a Clue?

Experts who spoke at the PCAOB's advisory group meeting on Thursday seemed unconvinced that companywide forensic audits would be cost-effective or, indeed, effective at all.

The idea that public companies should undergo periodic forensic audits designed to detect fraud failed to excite a panel of audit experts during a meeting of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Standing Advisory Group. Most members of the panel seemed unconvinced that a companywide forensic audit would be cost-effective — or, indeed, effective at all.

"There is a general lack of understanding regarding forensic procedures and their application, and this lack is not limited to the public at large," said Brad Preber, managing partner for Grant Thornton's Western Region Economic Advisory Practice. Preber argued that "there are no generally recognized standards to perform a 'forensic audit,'" and cautioned that if the approach is one of "open the books and see if you can find anything," the results will be "outrageously expensive and [will raise] significant issues of potential liability because you are searching for something that you aren't sure exists."

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