Despite the efforts of Livent officials to sabotage their independent audits, the company’s Deloitte auditors focused considerable attention on several suspicious transactions that they uncovered. The Deloitte auditors became increasingly skeptical of Livent’s accounting records in 1996 and 1997 when Drabinsky and his colleagues were scrambling to conceal the deteriorating financial condition of their company while, at the same time, attempting to raise much needed debt and equity capital.