<<< Date Index >>>     <<< Thread Index >>>

[IP] more on sox, auditing, finding improprieties





Begin forwarded message:

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 12, 2006 10:22:04 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: sox, auditing, finding improprieties

ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
From: Daniel Berninger <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 22, 2005 9:01:51 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Jack Bogle seeks to spark "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism"
Dave,
I wrote a review of the new book by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle's for
clients that may be of interest to readers of IP.
"The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" argues most of the forces that
produced the scandals among Enron, Worldcom, et al remain in place.
This means investors should expect another wave of scandals even as the bad actors of the first wave go to trial. Bogle believes the cycle will continue until investors get much more active in holding CEO's and the financial intermediaries accountable.

in principle, auditors are looking for inconsistencies between different information sources (which might be indication of fraud or other improprieties). auditing internal corporate books somewhat assumes that there are at least some that represent independent sources and therefor might have inconsistencies. modern IT technology can be leveraged to generate a complete consistent set of corporate books. in face of being able to leverage IT technology to generate complete consistency isn't going to be overcome by asking for more information from the same source (more doesn't necessarily imply independent)

looking for inconsistencies between independent sources then would imply that sources of information from non-corporate sources would have to be checked against corporate books (as opposed to assuming that inconsistencies might exist in purely internal corporate books, no matter how much the volume of information is specified).

that also somewhat has led to leveraging other sources of information about possible fraud or improprieties ... like inside informers.


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/