Throughout this quarter I have wrote about multiple large scale financial frauds such as ING, Lehman Brothers, Enron and Tyco. These frauds have had devastating affects to both shareholders and the company as a whole. Rather than re-summarize these frauds, I believe it would be more beneficial to explore the factors that made these frauds possible and the ways in which they could have been prevented. In almost all of these cases, at least one of the fraudsters was the CEO. By holding the position of CEO, they were entitled to all parts of the company, and had the ability to override a lot of the checks and balances in place. By disregarding segregation of duty and utilizing their power to control others, they were able to manipulate stock prices through misappropriated revenues. By putting higher revenues on their balance sheet, these well-known companies were able to manipulate stock holders perception of the company.
In the end each of these companies fell hard, leaving thousands unemployed and even more scammed out of their hard earned money. Although most of the fraudsters received jail time, it in no way makes up for the lives these individuals destroyed throughout their fraudulent schemes. Overall, I believe that a more standardized set of checks and balances as well as segregation of duty could have prevented these frauds from happening, and saved millions of dollars disappearing from the hands of shareholders. Crime doesn’t pay.