Accounting fraud

Financial restatements can prompt similar companies to misstate their own earnings, according to a new study.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two former top executives at OCZ Technology Group Inc. for accounting failures at the now-bankrupt seller of computer memory storage and power supply devices.

Mike Lynch, the founder of U.K. software company Autonomy, accused Hewlett-Packard Co. of damaging his career with false statements in the fallout from the two companies’ $10-billion merger that has been marred by a massive writedown and allegations of accounting fraud.

Toshiba Corp. said it has identified 30 more executives involved in an accounting scandal that has already led to resignations of three former presidents and reduced reported profit by about $1.3 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Trinity National Corp. and wholly owned subsidiary Los Alamos Bank, have agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of accounting fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed financial fraud charges against four former officers of SMF Energy Corp., a bankrupt Fort Lauderdale, Fla., fuel transport company.

Yigal M. Rechtman of Grassi & Co. recently concluded a fraud investigation involving a cash-skimming scheme. Here he shares his findings to help give tax professionals performing audits new perspective.

As an accountant for a public company, you’ve always dreaded this situation. You are going about your day-to-day duties in finance and stumble upon a problem with your employer’s accounting—a serious problem.

The Securities and Exchange Commission imposed sanctions Thursday against a Florida-based CPA for performing deficient and fraudulent audits and quarterly reviews for eight publicly traded companies, and issuing false and misleading audit opinions on the companies’ annual financial statements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed accounting fraud charges against two former top executives of a now-bankrupt online video management company, accusing them of falsifying financial statements to make the company appear more profitable than it was in reality.

BDO USA has agreed to pay $2.1 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that the firm dismissed a number of red flags and issued false and misleading unqualified audit opinions about the financial statements of a staffing services company, General Employment Enterprises.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Bankrate and three of its former executives with accounting fraud.

Certify, a company that specializes in expense management software, wants to draw attention to the problem of expense report fraud.

A California CPA has admitted to abusing his positions at a worship center in New Jersey and a nonprofit in California to steal more than $4 million.

Toshiba Corp. uncovered 10 new cases of accounting problems, including at a U.S. unit, prompting it to miss a regulator’s deadline for submission of its fiscal 2014 earnings release.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges Thursday alleging that Miller Energy Resources Inc., its former chief financial officer, and its current chief operating officer inflated values of oil and gas properties, resulting in fraudulent financial reports for the Tennessee-based company.

The last of Bernard Madoff’s employees to be sentenced in the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history was ordered to serve six months in prison after pleading for mercy because of his failing health.

Plaintiffs filed 85 new federal class-action securities cases against U.S.-based companies in the first half of 2015, a decrease from the second half of last year, which saw 92 cases filed, according to a new report.

More than a dozen years ago, the U.S. experienced a rash of high-profile accounting scandals. Now it’s Japan’s turn.

The Anti-Fraud Collaboration, a joint effort of the Center for Audit Quality, Financial Executives International, the Institute of Internal Auditors and the National Association of Corporate Directors, has released the third in a series of case studies examining how to identify and stop accounting fraud in an organization.