Accountants Behaving Badly: Ex-BDO Puerto Rico MP Charged, Sick Demands, Stealing $365K
Plus, chartered accountant jailed after stealing £86,000, and bankrupt New Zealand accountant sentenced for swindling horse trainers. Ex-Puerto Rico officials charged in corruption probe [Bloomberg] Fernando Scherrer-Caillet, ex-managing partner of BDO Puerto Rico, was one of six people indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on March 11 over allegations of theft, money laundering and wire […]
Accountants Behaving Badly: Ex-UAW President Charged with Embezzlement, Not Guilty Plea In Theft Case, Tax Fraud Sentencing
Plus, an accountant in India was arrested for secretly recording videos of women taking baths, and an Oklahoma City accountant was sentenced to 18 months in jail for embezzling more than $175,000 from her former employer. Former UAW President Gary Jones charged in U.S. corruption probe [Reuters] Former United Auto Workers President Gary Jones, who […]
House Dems Want BDO Puerto Rico to Stop Shredding Documents Already
When a document shredding truck pulls up to an accounting firm whose former managing partner was just indicted for his role, and that firm’s role, in a massive corruption scandal in Puerto Rico, it’s going to raise some eyebrows. And those eyebrows belong to U.S. Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY). Velázquez, a […]
All Fat Guys Can Relate to Ex-BDO Puerto Rico Managing Partner Trying to Put On a Belt
Here’s a question to all my fellow overweight brethren: Is there anything worse than trying to put on a belt while wearing a dress shirt? If you’re like me, after you tuck in the shirt, you poof it out in the front, back, and sides so it doesn’t cling to your stomach and love handles, […]
BDO Puerto Rico Managing Partner Resigns After Indictment In Massive Corruption Scandal
The words “managing partner” and “corruption” used in the same sentence is never a good thing, as we found out in the KPMG/PCAOB information leak scandal. But while there was no scheme to steal confidential information from an audit regulator going on in Puerto Rico, there were allegations of money laundering, theft, and wire fraud […]
KPMG Got Down on Its Knees and Begged South Africa for Forgiveness
South Africa, KPMG is sorry. Sorry for doing work for the billionaire Gupta family, who has been accused of using their links to former South Africa president Jacob Zuma to influence government decisions and the awarding of government contracts. Sorry for making severe auditing mistakes that led to the collapse of VBS Mutual Bank, in […]
Did KPMG Flop as FIFA’s Auditor?
The FIFA scandal is increasingly ridiculous as was so deftly shown by John Oliver last night. But now a Big 4 firm appears to be caught in the tentacles of it, which further demonstrates its depth and reach. A tipster dropped us a link to very interesting post from Matt Scott, a journalist who has […]
No Serious Allegations in India Makes for a Good Year in the Accounting Profession
You know it was a good year when no one got sued, at least according to Asish Bhattacharyya, Professor of Finance and Control at Indian Institute of Management – Calcutta. Here are his thoughts via Business Standard:
Although there was spill over, the year 2010 for the accounting profession was overall a very good year. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) could complete its task of formulating new set of accounting standards, which are fully convergent with IFRS. There was no serious allegation against the Chartered Accountancy profession. Job opportunities for young chartered accountants were plenty. The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants (ICWAI) has also done a commendable job of issuing a significant number of cost accounting standards. It could improve its image in the public eye. We may hope that the year 2011 will be an excellent year for the accounting profession.
That may come off as a bit optimistic but if the power of suggestion won’t work, perhaps a threat will. We hope that the members of the accounting profession will take note of this expectation.
Transparency International places India low in terms of ‘corruption perception index’. The score of 9-10 represents very clean. India’s score for the year 2010 is 3.3. If, India is high in corruption, professionals, particularly the accounting profession, cannot escape the responsibility. The society expects that the accounting profession will make all out efforts to eliminate corruption and that it will not use its skills and knowledge to manage corruption.
Key request being “that the accounting profession will make all out efforts to eliminate corruption and that it will not use its skills and knowledge to manage corruption.” Be careful saying things like that out loud, the big firms might get some revenue source ideas that involve exotic commodotized services packaged as “consulting and advisory”.
I don’t think we can say the same of 2010 being a good year for accounting over here in the good old U S of A (some could argue US accounting has had a bad bad year) but it’s a good thing no one called us and asked us to do exactly that.