A report by the Committee of Sponsoring
Organizations of the Treadway Commission
(COSO) compiled by Beasley et al. (1999)
examined fraudulent financial reporting
from 1987-1997 by US public companies. Some
of the most critical insights of the study are:
The companies committing fraud
generally were small, and most (78 per
cent of the sample) were not listed in the
New York or American Stock Exchanges.
Incidences of fraud went to the very top of
the organisations concerned. In 72 per
cent of the cases, the CEO appeared to be
associated with the fraud, and in 43 per
cent the CEO was associated with the
financial statement fraud.
The audit committees and boards of the
respective companies appeared to be
weak. Most audit committees rarely met,
and the companies’ boards of directors
were dominated by insiders and others
outsiders ``grey’’ directors, with
significant equity ownership and
apparently little experience of serving as
directors of other companies. A total of 25
per cent of the companies did not have an
audit committee.
The founders and board members owned a
significant portion of the companies.