Getting To The Bottom Of God’s Bank – 12 July 2013
10 Jul 2013News on June 26 that Pope Francis has set up a commission of inquiry to review the activities of the Vatican bank means that an army of investigators are set to pore over details of its 19,000 accounts, 114 employees and £4.6bn worth of assets. It was the second time in as many weeks that […]
Mandate Fraud Increasing – 10 July 2013
10 Jul 2013A foiled attempt to defraud a borough council in Wales out of over £2 million, has highlighted the need for businesses to not only be vigilant when it comes to financial transactions with customers and contractors; but to also employ the services of forensic accountants when they believe something may be amiss. The attempted fraud, […]
The End Of A Partnership – 27 June 2013
27 Jun 2013The High Court ruled earlier this month that the intellectual property rights for software created within a now-defunct partnership had belonged to the partnership rather than the partner who created it, who was the ex-wife of the other partner. As with the divorce itself, no doubt, a lot of the arguments will have centred around […]
The Fraud Facts – 6 June 2013
06 Jun 2013The National Forensic Authority has recently published its Annual Fraud Indicator, which reveals that the estimated loss to the UK economy on an annual basis through fraud is £52bn, although the report also points out that the fraud reported is “a fraction of the fraud that remains out of sight”. However, while the report discusses […]
Hiring A Forensic Accountant In A Divorce Will Pay For Itself – 31 May 2013
31 May 2013Considering that divorce is up there with bereavement and moving home as one of the most traumatic things a person can expect to endure in his or her lifetime, not to mention an expensive exercise, it is no wonder that people wonder whether employing a forensic accountant is worth the money, but in almost every […]
Experts instructed by Unrepresented Parties (Previously known as litigants in person) – 30 May 2013
30 May 2013What difference does an unrepresented party make to the way an expert witness would wish to be instructed and paid? Legal aid cuts introduced in April 2013 will to a great extent remove public funding for civil proceedings i.e. that part of our legal system that involves relationships between individuals – the law of contracts. […]
What’s It Worth? – 29 May 2013
29 May 2013The BBC recently reported that campaigners opposed to the high-speed rail line through the Midlands are seeking legal advice on taking the Government to court; a move which acts as a reminder that forensic accountants can not only be used in high-profile divorces but also to provide expert accountancy evidence in compulsory compensation disputes. Many forensic […]
The Lifestyle To Which One Has Become Accustomed – 20 May 2013
20 May 2013Although the Office for National Statistics says that the divorce rate is the lowest it has been since 1977, in 2011, which is the most recent year it has statistics on, 10.8 marriages in 1,000 still ended in divorce and the landmark White v White case means that women need a champion when it comes […]
Give Me The Bad News First – 26 April 2013
26 Apr 2013There are daily accounts in the news of people who have been found guilty of embezzlement, fiddling their tax, hiding assets in divorce cases or perpetrating fraud on a grand scale, but little or nothing is heard about those who are accused of such crimes but then found not guilty because they employed a good […]
Forensic accounting methods save taxpayers over £1bn – 22 April 2013
22 Apr 2013The National Audit Office announced last month that its National Fraud Initiative (NFI) has saved the taxpayer over £1bn through employing forensic accounting methods and tracking cash lost through fraud, overpayment or error. As forensic accountants do, the NFI’s investigators cross-matched information from over 1,300 organisations in the public and private sectors and flagged up inconsistencies […]
Forensic Accountants Could Check Financial Applications – 12 April 2013
12 Apr 2013As credit rating agency Experian reveals that mortgage fraud jumped by nearly 10 per cent last year, mortgage companies may have to ask forensic accountants to verify applications. According to Experian, 38 in every 10,000 mortgage applications was fraudulent in 2012 compared with 35 in 2011 and the rise is being blamed on the economic […]
Fears over benefit fraud – 5 April 2013
05 Apr 2013With the introduction of Universal Credit giving rise to fears of mass benefit fraud, officials suspicious of people would do well to follow the methods of forensic accountants in tracking down offenders. Universal Credit will replace benefits including income support and housing benefit with a single payment and millions of existing benefit claimants will be […]
Finding The Fiddle – 15 March 2013
15 Mar 2013As two former Crown Prosecution Service employees are convicted of making more than £1m worth of bogus claims for taxi fares, suspicious employers could put their minds at rest – or find out if their concerns are valid – by getting a forensic accountant to go over their accounts. There are usually tell-tale signs that […]
Following the Money Trail – 11 March 2013
11 Mar 2013Finding the assets of criminals can be very difficult when people are determined to hide them but the case is made even more difficult when the perpetrators know exactly what they are doing, as in the recent case of two professionals who laundered more than £1.8m of criminal cash from VAT fraud. However, forensic accountants, […]
Investigative Accountants To Find QC’s Money – 4 March 2013
04 Mar 2013As a high-flying London barrister starts a three-and-a-half year sentence for evading VAT over a twelve year period, investigative accountants must start the lengthy process of finding the cash he withheld from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Rohan Pershad was deregistered for VAT in 2000 following a history of failure to submit tax returns and […]
Divorce Hot Spots – 1 March 2013
01 Mar 2013As the top ten hotspots for divorce in the UK are named, divorcing couples should ensure that they have the number of a good forensic accountant in case their current other half tries to hide any of the joint assets to which they are entitled. Unfortunately, with around 42 per cent of marriages in the […]
Forensic Accountants Find ‘Systemic Fraud’ – 25 February 2013
22 Feb 2013Three more people have been arrested over alleged fraud at welfare-to-work company A4e, highlighting the importance of forensic auditors, who first picked up on anomalies at the company in 2009 during a routine internal audit. The audit unearthed evidence of staff claiming for putting people into non-existent jobs, jobs that did not qualify for payment […]
Forensic Accounting Helps To Convict In Insurance Fraud – 22 Feb 2013
22 Feb 2013A claims management company has been shut down and two fraudsters jailed after a ‘crash for cash’ fraud ring was exposed through the work of the Metropolitan Police and painstaking backroom work on the criminals’ financial dealings. Last week company secretary of the firm and the ring’s mastermind, Andre Malagiac was sentenced to 12 months […]
Investigative Accounting Useful In Due Diligence – 4th February 2013
04 Feb 2013With the news that Caterpillar Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman has accepted blame for overpaying a key acquisition in China because of a “deliberate accounting misconduct”, it would be wise for businesses to remember to bring in the investigative accountants if conducting a due diligence exercise. If a company the size of Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment […]
Following Fraudsters’ Money – 28th January 2013
28 Jan 2013With fraud of some sort or another being in the news almost every day, forensic accountants are being thrust into the limelight, with an article on the practice being used in divorce settlements even making it into the London Evening Standard this week. This is because forensic accountants specialise in following the money trail and […]
Hiding Assets Won’t Work – 21st January 2013
21 Jan 2013A former property tycoon, who attempted to hide his £400m fortune in an attempt to prevent his wife getting a fair share of the assets after their divorce was jailed this week for his “deliberate” refusal to prove how he lost the money. Judge Mr Justice Moor jailed Scot Young for six months for “flagrant” contempt of court after […]
Forensic Investigation Uncovers Business Loans Corruption – 14th January 2013
14 Jan 2013Following a large-scale investigation into corruption, fraud and money laundering at a high street bank, which took over two years to come to fruition, Thames Valley police have charged eight people, including two former senior managers at HBOS. Allegations, which were reported under privilege in the House of Commons as long ago as June 2009, surfaced that a banker at […]
Olympus CEO Called In Forensic Accountants – 4th January 2013
04 Jan 2013The first CEO to turn whistleblower, Michael Woodford, last month published a book on how he eventually called in forensic accountants to get to the bottom of the fraud that threatened his livelihood, health and even at one stage, his life. Mr Woodford recalls in Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower, how he […]
Investigative Accountants Going Global – 14th December 2012
21 Dec 2012After As the investigation into wrongdoing over the rigging of the Libor rate continues, international regulators have now uncovered evidence leading to the arrest of two executives at broker RP Martin, while another brokerage has been asked to provide information to the investigators. The ever-widening investigation has led to more people being dragged into the regulatory net, […]
Investigative Accounting Brings About First Land Banking Convictions – 14th December 2012
14 Dec 2012After what has been described as a “complex and painstaking investigation” into the accounts, lifestyles and business practices of a couple of conmen, the UK’s first criminal convictions and prison sentences for a land banking fraud were secured last week. Omar Eshpari and Stefan Mitchell were sentenced to seven and six years respectively, having been […]