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Fraud


These types are: timing differences - recognition of revenue early or recording expenses in the wrong period; fictitious revenues - revenue fabrication, adjusting sales return and allowances provisions and lowering revenue adjustments; concealed liabilities and expenses - omitting liabilities or expenses from the financial statements, understating warranty and product liabilities; improper asset valuations - overstating cash, inventories, receivables or fixed assets; and improper disclosures - failure to disclose significant events, related party transactions or changes in accounting policies
             They are all designed to misrepresent the financial strength or performance of the company in order to make the company appear more valuable to stockholders, potential stockholders or higher-level management. Cases illustrating some of these forms of fraud are outlined below.
             Enron.
             The Enron case was one of most publicized and complex fraud cases in recent years. Once detected, it resulted in the collapse of the company, billions of dollars of losses to both employees and stockholders and federal convictions both within and outside of the corporation. Enron's financial problems began as a result of being heavily invested in several markets including natural gas, electric, broadband, futures, coal, paper, steel and water (The Rise and Fall of Enron). In order to invest, Enron needed capital, which made a good credit rating critical to the future growth and success of the company. As Enron became highly leveraged, the management team searched for creative ways to improve the company's leverage ratios.
             One of the ways they did this was to reduce the company's total debt-to-assets ratio and increase the return-on-assets ratio. Enron's CFO, Andrew Fastow (with the blessing of CEO Jeffrey Skilling and Chairman, Kenneth Lay), created limited partnerships where they could transfer many of Enron's investments and related debt to.


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