In my last blog post, I discussed the two types of transactions—stock and asset—that are found in the databases appraisers use when applying the guideline transaction method in litigated business valuation and how to use these transactions to ...
Kelly J. Todd
From board games to drive-in movies, a whole raft of retro activities have made a comeback amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, fraudsters also have been busy reviving a blast from the past—the Ponzi scheme.
During the last two years, ...
A do-it-yourself approach may work well for repairs around the house, but for CPAs conducting a financial statement audit, engaging specialized forensic accounting services to help design an audit to detect fraud can help avoid a ...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice charged eight Brooklyn, N.Y., men with fraudulently scamming more than $2 million out of COVID-19 relief programs.
How did investigators track down the alleged scammers? Four of the ...
Recently, the former comptroller of a Maryland dance academy pleaded guilty to fraud after she gambled away nearly $1.5 million of school funds at a local casino. One embezzlement fraud conviction is bad enough. But the woman in question had ...
For nearly 25 years now, I’ve been exhorting CPAs to take seriously their responsibility to detect fraud during an audit—or face the potentially ruinous financial and reputational consequences of accountant malpractice claims.
Sadly, many ...
A forensic examination can yield a mountain of data from a variety of disparate sources that can help expose wrongdoing and provide hard evidence critical to proving (or disproving) a case.
But gathering and analyzing the data is just ...
Another Year, Another Multi-Billion-Dollar Haul for the Government in False Claims Act Qui Tam Cases
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it had collected $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government during the last fiscal year — with the bulk of the money ...
When reviewing a business valuation report, an attorney should check to see that the business appraiser considered the three approaches to value—market, income, and asset. While each approach has its own methodologies, our focus in this ...
Written in collaboration with Janine Driver, author of You Can’t Lie to Me
A few weeks ago, Bernie Madoff, architect of one of the largest and most infamous Ponzi schemes in history, died in prison. He was serving a 150-year term for ...
Discovering that a trusted employee has engaged in embezzlement fraud can lead to a series of sometimes contradictory responses by an organization’s leaders—actions that can harm an investigation and expose the enterprise to additional ...
When a couple is divorcing in an equitable distribution or community property jurisdiction and their assets include ownership in a closely held company, the value of the business typically must be determined.
Analyzing the company’s cashflow ...