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Footnotes: Leopard Pants at the Office; Accounting Barbie; Bad Insider Trading | 08.26.14

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Some advice on avoiding fashion faux pas [AICPA]

SEC Charges Investor Relations Firm Executive With Insider Trading Ahead of News Announcements By Clients Fail: "An SEC investigation and ongoing forensic analysis of Lucarelli’s work computers uncovered that he repeatedly accessed clients’ draft press releases stored on his firm’s computer network prior to public announcements. The SEC alleges that Lucarelli, who had no legitimate work-related reason to access the draft press releases, routinely purchased stock or call options in advance of favorable news and sold short or bought put options ahead of unfavorable news." [SEC]

Accountant blows £25k on plastic surgery to completely transform her body – aged just 25 The blonde beauty, from Witney, Oxfordshire, said: "I didn't see why you had to accept the way you were made, when there were so many treatments and surgeries available." [Mirror]

Do we even use that word nowadays? [Twitter]

Companies are Running the Numbers on Potential Tax Inversions [CFO Journal]

Your Boss's Urgent E-Mail May Be a Scam [BBW]

Should you be frightened by how much "money" BlackRock controls? [Black Bag]

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CFO Confession: HealthSouth Edition

It might be a fair statement that we like to talk a little trash here at Going Concern. We do our best to embrace our natural inclination. However, every once in awhile we try to spread some positive news.
Today’s attempt at a positive story comes courtesy of Aaron Beam, a former CFO at HealthSouth. Beam was CFO at HealthSouth when the fraud first began in 1996. Beam describes his decision to make the numbers up this way, “one night, during the second quarter of ’96, I said, ‘OK, let’s do it,’ and we credited revenue that did not exist and we debited assets that did not exist.”
Not exactly the most sophisticated fraud in the world but whatevs. The Street and Richard Scrushy demanded results.
And so it went, until Beam left in 1997. HealthSouth continued to commit accounting fraud until 2002 when it imploded. Beam testified against “Hannibal Lecter” Scrushy but the slimeball walked on the criminal charges only to be found liable for damages to the tidy sum of a shade under $2.9 Billion.
As for Beam, he spent 3 months in a non-FPMITA prison and now speaks to business students around the country about ethics and has a lawn-service business.

I’m trying to turn a big negative into a positive, because there is such a need for ethics in the business world today, and I’m in a unique position to talk about it. If we can teach college students that they’re going to face these kinds of temptations every day in the business world, we can make a difference.

WTG man, and hey, we’re being serious.
“I Should Have Said No.” [CFO.com]

Footnotes: New Digs For EY; LOL French People; Ugh Deadbeat Clients | 11.20.13

After SEC Prod, Microsoft Adds Details on Foreign Taxes and Surface [WSJ Digits] Legendary accountant […]

PCAOB, We Need to Have a Talk

pcaob.gifPCAOB, we here at Going Concern want to help you get some respect. We really do.
We don’t think it’s fair that people think you’re slow at writing rules for auditors. Okay, maybe you could pick up the pace a little bit but we know that it takes a lot of work and patience to write those rules. But then we heard about this and we want to let you know that we aren’t angry, you’re just letting us down.
Reuters:

The U.S. audit watchdog voted on Thursday to defer its first inspection on 49 foreign auditors in areas such as the European Union, China and Switzerland for up to three years.

Like we said, we’re not mad. We’re disappointed.

US PCAOB delays 1st review of 49 foreign auditors [Reuters]