The SEC estimated that the accounting manipulations understand Livent’s expenses by more than $30 million in the mid-1990s. Despite the resulting favorable impact on Livent’s financial statement, Drabinsky and Gottlieb eventually realized that additional efforts were needed to embellish the company’s financial data. So, beginning in 1996, Drabinsky and Gottlieb organized and carried out what the SEC referred to as a “fraudulent revenue-generation” scheme.