Bullock County Audit reveals material weaknesses

A recent audit done by the State Board of Examiners revealed that the Bullock County Commission, Alabama had a number of material weaknesses in their financial reporting. The audit covered the 2008-2009 fiscal years. The key issues uncovered were relating to the funds...

Ahold fraud

In February 2003, the Amsterdam based supermarket operator, Ahold announced that it had inflated earnings by atleast €391M ($500M) at its wholly owned US food service subsidiary. Apart from that the company also improperly consolidated revenues from joint ventures....

VeriFone restates their financials

In 2009, Silicon Valley technology company, VeriFone settled charges with the SEC concerning the company’s restatement of quarterly financials. In 2007, SEC alleged that the company had released materially false quarterly reports for the first, second and third fiscal...

The case of phantom customers

A recent report by Muddy Waters ,a small research firm , about RINO International Inc , a desulfurization and other environmental equipment provider to Chinese steel mills, is an interesting read. According to Muddy, RINO’s business is a complete sham. The...

The bug in the accounting at Computer Sciences

In their 10Q filing, Computer Sciences Corp. disclosed that it had found some accounting irregularities in their Nordic business unit. The issue amounts to a “material weakness” in internal controls over financial reporting. The company took a hit of $30...

Accounting error that travelled through years!

Tui Travel a tour operator, a company formed in 2007 from the merger of German group Tui AG’s travel division and First Choice, disclosed that the company had overlooked £117 million of small cash discounts given to British holidaymakers. The finance director of...