Accounting fraud

Last year saw a rise in accounting-driven federal class action lawsuits, according to a new report from Big Four firm PwC.

The managing partner of the CPA firm PKF Pacific Hawaii has been charged with 13 felony counts relating to losses of more than $500,000 from his firm.

Filings of securities class actions with accounting-related allegations increased 47 percent in 2014, according to a new study.

An accounting scandal, a failed merger and the departure of top executives would normally make a company toxic to acquirers. Not for Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., the subject of a $11 billion bidding war that drove the drugmaker’s stock close to its highest-ever price.

Noble Group Ltd. denied inflating the balance-sheet value of contracts as Asia’s biggest commodities trading house published a rebuttal against allegations by Iceberg Research, an anonymous group that’s questioned the company’s accounting methods. Noble’s shares rose.