The Anti-Fraud Collaboration—a partnership between the Center for Audit Quality, Financial Executives International, The Institute of Internal Auditors, and the National Association of Corporate Directors—sifted through more than 530 SEC Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs) filed between 2014 and 2019 for its newly released report, Mitigating the Risk of Common Fraud Schemes: Insights from SEC Enforcement Actions, and found 140 financial statement fraud schemes across 204 enforcement actions.
The most common? Inventory misstatement and loan impairment issues tied for third with 11%, reserves manipulation was second at 24%, but coming in at No. 1 was improper revenue recognition at 43%.
And in the most unshocking news ever, CFOs of public companies (54%) were charged with fraud in SEC enforcement actions more frequently than any other individual, with CEOs (31%) coming in second.
