Today’s nugget of knowledge comes courtesy this Reddit post and the OP’s ethics textbook: Debit […]
Tag: Porn
Accountants Behaving Badly: Guy Liked Gambling and Porn a Little Too Much
After pleading guilty last February to two counts of wire fraud for stealing more than […]
Cybersecurity Experts PwC Get One of Their Subdomains Hijacked By Porn Spam
It feels like it’s been months since I’ve been able to write about something that […]
Fired Marc Jacobs CFO Will Have You Know That Deloitte Never Complained About His Work
Last month we told you about Patrice Lataillade, the former Marc Jacobs CFO who was fired, he claims, because he complained about all the porn floating around the office, mandatory pole dances forced upon employees and various other things. Lataillade has sued the company saying that after he complained about the rampant lewdness, he was later told that his services were no longer needed.
The company disputes this, saying that Lataillade was actually doing a little double-entry magic for about $20 million or so in order to earn himself a nicer bonus. Lataillade has now pulled a Chinese stunt of sorts, claiming that Deloitte said everything was hunky dory and that should convince anyone that doubts his CFO prowess:
Lataillade and his lawyers said that the company, which fired Lataillade last September, never had any trouble with his monitoring of its finances in his long tenure at Marc Jacobs International. His work was checked and rechecked not only by accountants for LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate that owns Marc Jacobs International, but also by the company’s accounting firm Deloitte and Touch [sic]. Lataillade claims he never heard a complaint about his performance, and that he was really fired for speaking out against sexual discrimination at work.
Fired Marc Jacobs Exec Says Company Is Ignoring The Facts [Styleite]
Marc Jacobs Says Former CFO Was Fired Because He Was Cooking the Books Not Because He Complained About a Pole Dance, All the Porn Floating Around
Marc Jacobs International claims that its former COO and CFO, Patrice Lataillade, got a little fancy with the company’s numbers in order to give himself “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bonuses. The Post reports that court documents state that audits revealed “false and inflated entries” for about $20 million or so. The company says Lataillade was fired from his job for all this financial hocus pocus,
This all came out because Lataillade sued the company alleging that he was fired for entirely different reason altogether. Apparently MJI co-founder and President Robert Duffy likes to have a little fun around the office that wasn’t appreciated by everyone, namely Mr. Lataillade.
“Examples of Duffy’s conduct which created a hostile work environment include his displaying gay pornography in the office and requiring employees to look at it; his production and dissemination of a book which includes photos of MJI staff in sexual positions or nude; his requirement that an MJI store employee perform a pole dance for him,” the suit said.
Accounting/finance types can be get a little stuffy, that’s a given but seeing co-workers in various compromising positions and/or working a pole at the boss’s behest could make for some awkward looks/conversations later. Not that it excuses running through some bullshit journal entries for your own personal financial benefit but I suppose there may be a legitimate beef in there.
Marc Jacobs COO fired for ‘cooking books’ not harassment: court filings [NYP]
SEC Still Cleaning Up Waste Management
Former Waste Management Chief Accounting Officer Bruce Snyder settled a civil injunctive action with the SEC today. The action relates to a little incident when Brucey “among other things, prepared, reviewed, and signed a materially false or misleading Form 10-Q,” back in ’99.
Perhaps this case was handled as efficiently as possible but taking twelve years to wrap this up might be enough to encourage Mary Schapiro to ask some other people to get better at their jobs (that means, lay off the porn). [SEC]
Brazilian Accountant Wins the Right to Watch Porn, Masturbate at Work
A least one accountant at the SEC is getting his lawyer on the phone as we speak.
Ana Catarian Bezerra, a 36-year-old Brazilian accountant who suffers from a chemical imbalance that triggers severe anxiety and hypersexuality, has won the right to masturbate and watch porn at work!
Since she knew the only way to cure her anxiety was to masturbate, she knew she needed help, explaining:
“I got so bad I would to masturbate up to forty seven-times a day. That’s when I asked for help, I knew it wasn’t normal.”
After getting some medical attention and a prescription “cocktail” of tranquilizers, NOW she only masturbates a few eight times a day. Still A LOT of masturbation, but A LOT LESS than before.
Due to her orgasmic medical condition, she took her employer to court in order to be allowed to masturbate on the clock and WON.
Brazilian Woman Wins Right To Masturbate At Work [Guanabee via PH]
Technology at SEC Good Enough for Viewing Porn, Not Reliable Internal Controls
Last year the Government Accountability Office issued a report that called attention to the SEC’s accounting system (or lack thereof). Reuters now reports that the SEC will admit in testimony tomorrow that the material weaknesses in their accounting system are largely due to technology that would make your grandparents laugh.
“These material weaknesses are unacceptable,” the SEC’s top division directors said in prepared testimony that was viewed by Reuters. They added the “root causes” of the problems stem from “years of underinvesting in financial system technologies.”
It should be noted that while the accounting systems were not quite up to snuff for the GAO, the equipment used by employees was sufficient for viewing a metric asston of porn, which we just learned moments ago, was even more widespread than initially thought.
SEC says its accounting problems stem from technology [Reuters]
Some Ernst & Young Employees Got Paid to Look at a Plethora of Porn
Really not sure why or how E&Y landed this gig but work is work.
Police may be called on to investigate reports [New South Wales] [Members of Parliament] or their staff accessed websites containing sexually explicit images of young people.
The findings were contained in an independent report by Ernst & Young, commissioned in September after an unauthorised audit of computer use in the NSW parliament showed “adult” websites had been visited from the offices of some MPs.
The report, tabled in parliament yesterday, says that of the 72 most-used websites on parliamentary computers over a 10-month period, 35 “appear to be adult-related sites”.
Nine contained sexually explicit images of young people, some of whom may be under 16.
Nearly 50% of the most-used sites over a 10 month period? And some that could involve minors (in NSW)! That’s impressive even by SEC standards.
Berkshire CFO Attempts to Kill SEC Curiosity
When you’re a folksy billionaire octogenarian, you can afford to have others do your dirty work. In the case of the Warren Buffet, he has Charlie Munger hate on accountants for anything and everything under the sun.
Similarly, when the SEC comes calling, the Sage of Omaha can ring up Berkshire CFO Marc Hamburg. On the one hand, you might expect WB to shoot the breeze with the SEC employees since they likely share a fondness for a certain film genre.
However, when the conversation turns to business, the old man probably claims that he has an interview on tax cuts, a bridge match with WHGIII or a lunch date with Z-Knowles. This allows him to turn the SEC scamps over to Hamburg who plays a little bit of a bad cop to the Buffet’s chatty, dirty Grandpa. The CFO then lets the SEC know, in no uncertain terms, that they’re barking up the wrong tree:
In an April letter, the SEC asked Berkshire why it was not recording write-downs on shares with $1.86 billion in unrealized losses, all of which had been in that position for at least a year.
Given the duration of those losses, the SEC said they appeared to be more than temporary and as such should have been written down.
In a detailed response, Berkshire Chief Financial Officer Marc Hamburg said most of the losses with more than 12 months’ duration as of December 31 were concentrated in Kraft and U.S. Bancorp, shares it had acquired in 2006 and 2007.
Hamburg said that as of December 31, Berkshire determined both companies had enough earnings potential that their share prices would eventually exceed the original cost of the stock. It also has the “ability and intent” to hold the shares until they recovered, he said.
“We believe it is reasonably possible that the market prices of Kraft Foods and U.S. Bancorp will recover to our cost within the next one to two years assuming that there are no material adverse events affecting these companies or the industries in which they operate,” Hamburg said.
And if this doesn’t work, they’ll just schedule Munger for another speech.
SEC questioned Warren Buffett’s Berkshire on loss accounting [Reuters]
Law-Abiding Porn Enthusiasts in Utah Dealt a Blow
“The Supreme Court won’t stop Utah from enacting a 10 percent tax on everything sold by adult-oriented businesses to pay for sex-offender treatment.” [On the Money/The Hill]
Wife of Ex-Deloitte Partner: Porn-extortion Plot Saved Our Marriage
[caption id="attachment_17969" align="alignright" width="260" caption="The happy couple. SOURCE: Jeff Day/NYP"]
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Remember back in May when we told you about Steven Klig, the former Deloitte tax partner-cum-lawyer who attempted to extort his ex-lover with a sex tape? Klig was merely looking for some additional nude pics of his mistress after she broke it off and when she didn’t comply, Klig started with his devious-randy plot.
Klig thought to do some of his blackmailing while on vacation with the wife in kids at Disney World, which is especially creepy considering he would have been drowning in happiness.
Well, Klig is to be sentenced on Friday after pleading guilty in May to illegally accessing a computer network to threaten his mistress. Yesterday he had a whole host of people singing his praises, including his wife, who told the judge that this whole situation has turned things around for them.
In court papers filed yesterday, Steven Klig’s wife, Ellen, said she “thought our life was over” when six FBI agents showed up at their Great Neck, LI, home last year and arrested her hubby for extortion.
“Instead, it was just beginning again. I got my husband back and my children got their father back,” she wrote to Manhattan federal Judge John Koeltl, who will sentence her husband Friday.
Ellen — who said Klig had “withdrawn from our family” due to job-related stress — noted that they’ve been seeing shrinks “individually and as a couple,” and “really work at keeping the lines of communication open.
“As a couple, we have rebounded to the point that after 20 years of marriage, we renewed our wedding vows and our commitment to each other and to our family,” she wrote.
Oh sure lady. Blame Deloitte! It’s bad enough that they have to take shit from the likes of Marin County California. But now you’re saying your marriage troubles were the fault of a firm that is going to (supposedly) create a quarter of a million jobs and the arrest of your husband for plan he concocted in order to get his rocks off are what turned it all around?
Even Klig himself claims that he was somewhere in between mild-mannered tax attorney and something out of a David Lynch film:
Klig — who has never revealed if he actually had the sex tape — blamed his shameful scheme on a sleep disorder, saying, “I really have no explanation other than I strongly believe . . . I was in a world that existed somewhere between insanity and sanity.”
Several former Deloitte co-workers also penned missives in support of Klig, who left the firm in disgrace after his arrest.
Former colleague Monte Jackel wrote that he “heard no mention of any misconduct of any type on Steve’s part . . . until the story broke in the New York Post.
“I was truly shocked at the allegations . . . but view them as out of character with the Steve Klig that I knew then and know today,” Jackel wrote.
The guy in between, well, who’s to say?