...United States suffered a time in which several large companies engaged in fraudulent behavior which eroded investor confidence in the stock market and to some extent destabilized the economy. Audits, which were conducted to assess the validity and reliability of a company’s financial statements, were not detecting the material misstatements in the statements. As a result, both the US Government and the accounting profession needed to come up with a way to prevent these immense frauds from occurring in the future. As a response to these large frauds, in 2002, the US Government passed the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99(SAS No. 99) to improve investor confidence and the auditing function’s ability to detect material frauds. The intent of this thesis was to look at the fraudulent factors associated with several recent corporate frauds and compare them to the standards set by SAS No. 99. Through the analysis conducted, this thesis looks at the relationships between pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations made during the act of fraud. Table of Contents ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) 1 Statement of Auditing Standards Number 99 (SAS No. 99) 4 Parts of the Fraud Triangle 5 Types of Fraud 11 INSTANCES OF FRAUD 13 Enron Corporation 13 Adelphia Communications Corporation 17 AOL Time Warner, Inc. 20 Bristol-Myers...
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...America Online (AOL) In the early 1980s, Case felt there was a latent market for user friendly online services. The online services provided at that time were very complex and costly and provided poor quality content. Believing that the online service market would evolve into a big industry in future, Case, Jim Kimsey and Marc Seriff founded AOL in 1985. The company was initially incorporated as Quantum Computer Services (Quantum). Quantum provided online services to consumers via PC modems. Quantum's first product was 'Q-Link,' a proprietary online service that routed emails and chat through its communication network (via telephone cables). Q-Link became popular in the market, and within a year its user base crossed the 10,000 mark. | | In October 1989, the company launched a private online service for all computer users in the US. The new service, identified by a blue triangle with a swirl in the center (the company's logo), offered games, e-mail, chat, news and travel information. In 1991, Quantum was renamed America Online and Case was appointed CEO of the company. ------------------------------------------------- The total customer base of the company during that period was 150,000, with total revenues amounting to $ 20 million. During the 1990s, AOL acquired Compuserve, Netscape and the ICQ brand. These acquisitions helped it establish itself as a global online service provider.4 During the same, AOL entered the e-commerce solutions market through an alliance with...
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...ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, we would like to express our greatest appreciation to Allah for His love and blessings upon us. Secondly, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Sir Ahmad Suhaimi for his guidance and advice in making sure our research project is completed within the timeframe. We would also like to thank him for all his support and patience in supervising. Our work, which greatly motivated us throughout the completion of the research project . Thank you so much. Lastly, we would also like to thank our parents, as well as our fellow friends , for their constant support and encouragement throughout our studies at KLMUC. The research project would not have been possible done without the care and concern shown. We would also like to dedicate our appreciation to Malaysian Government for PTPTN and MARA financial aid, which has helped us with the funding and support necessary to study. Introduction of Internet and E-commerce History of the Internet began with the development of computers in the 1950s. Point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals was the beginning. Since then, the development of Internet had grown in alignment with the rapid development of computers1. E-commerce emerged during the 1990s when Internet was opened to commercial use and in 2000; E-commerce became a hit in United States and Western European where a great number of businesses represented their products or services in the World Wide Web2, promoting...
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...International Congress of Electricity at the World's Fair in Paris. Souvenir trading cards are sold at the same fair, two predicting color television and news radio in the year 2000. 1905 Philipp Lenard wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his research on cathode rays. 1907 A.A. Campbell Swinton in England and Boris Rosing in Russia independently propose an electronic scanning system in which a cathode ray tube could produce an image on a phosphorus-coated screen. 1923 Vladimir Zworykin, working for Westinghouse Electric, patents the iconoscope, a television transmission tube and in 1924, patents the kinescope, the receiver tube. 1925 In England, John Logie Baird demonstrates the first moving television pictures via a mechanical system based on Nipkow's disk; they were recognizable human faces in 1925 and moving objects in 1926. He had shown a still image of Felix the Cat in 1924. 1927 Philo Farnsworth transmits the first electronic television image and applies for a patent on the first complete electronic system, the Image Dissector. The first practical demonstration of television is arranged by Bell Labs and AT&T, when Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in Washington DC spoke to the president of AT&T in New York. The New York Times reports a clear reception. All About Television, the first serious hobbyist television magazine, is published. The Radio Act, 47 U.S.C. 81-119 (1927) (repealed 1934), regulates programming, sets up a system for issuing licenses, and makes...
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...400 (2010)[5] | Subsidiaries | YouTube, DoubleClick, On2 Technologies, GrandCentral, Picnik, Aardvark, AdMob | Website | Google.com | Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products,[6] and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program.[3][7] The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys",[8][9][10] while the two were attending Stanford University as Ph.D. candidates. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for twenty years, until the year 2024.[11] The company's stated mission from the outset was "to organize the world's information...
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...Wor9 - 1 04 - 0 71 R EV: JU LY 2 6 , 2 00 4 RO BERT S. KAPLAN D A VI D KIR O N Accounting Fraud at WorldCom WorldCom could not have failed as a result of the actions of a limited number of individuals. Rather, there was a broad breakdown of the system of internal controls, corporate governance and individual responsibility, all of which worked together to create a culture in which few persons took responsibility until it was too late . — Richard Thornburgh, former U.S. attorney general1 On July 21, 2002, WorldCom Group, a telecommunications company with more than $30 billion in revenues, $104 billion in assets, and 60,000 employees, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Between 1999 and 2002, WorldCom had overstated its pretax income by at least $7 billion; a deliberate miscalculation that was, at the time, the largest in history. The company subsequently wrote down about $82 billion (more than 75%) of its reported assets.2 WorldCom’s stock, once valued at $180 billion, became nearly worthless. Seventeen thousand employees lost their jobs; many left the company with worthless retirement accounts. The company’s bankruptcy also jeopardized service to WorldCom’s 20 million retail customers and on government contracts affecting 80 million Social Security beneficiaries, air traffic control for the Federal Aviation Association, network management for the Department of Defense and long-distance services for both houses of Congress and the...
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...9-104-071 REV: SEPTEMBER 14, 2007 ROBERT S. KAPLAN DAVID KIRON Accounting Fraud at WorldCom WorldCom could not have failed as a result of the actions of a limited number of individuals. Rather, there was a broad breakdown of the system of internal controls, corporate governance and individual responsibility, all of which worked together to create a culture in which few persons took responsibility until it was too late. — Richard Thornburgh, former U.S. attorney general1 On July 21, 2002, WorldCom Group, a telecommunications company with more than $30 billion in revenues, $104 billion in assets, and 60,000 employees, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Between 1999 and 2002, WorldCom had overstated its pretax income by at least $7 billion, a deliberate miscalculation that was, at the time, the largest in history. The company subsequently wrote down about $82 billion (more than 75%) of its reported assets.2 WorldCom’s stock, once valued at $180 billion, became nearly worthless. Seventeen thousand employees lost their jobs; many left the company with worthless retirement accounts. The company’s bankruptcy also jeopardized service to WorldCom’s 20 million retail customers and on government contracts affecting 80 million Social Security beneficiaries, air traffic control for the Federal Aviation Association, network management for the Department of Defense, and long-distance services for both houses of Congress and...
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...S U C C E S S F U L ON THE INTERNET A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF A MASTERS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE ROBIN S. CLELAND SEPTEMBER 2000 BUILDING SUCCESSFUL BRANDS ON THE INTERNET CONTENTS SUBJECT PAGE CHAPTER 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Overview Objectives Methodology Structure INTRODUCTION 6 7 9 9 11 CHAPTER 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 THE NATURE OF BRANDS 12 13 13 14 15 16 18 19 20 22 22 23 2.9 Introduction What is a Brand? The Layers of a Brand Product and Service Brands Branding & the Buying Process The Importance of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Emotional Loyalty The Concept of Brand Equity 2.8.1 The Value of Brands to Customers 2.8.2 The Value of Brands to Companies Conclusion CHAPTER 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 BUILDING BRANDS 24 25 25 26 27 28 30 31 32 32 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Introduction Overview of the Brand-Building Process The Value Proposition 3.3.1 Added Value 3.3.2 Distinctive Brand Identity Developing the Framework and Communicating the Value Proposition Building Customer Relationships Characteristics of Successful Brands Conclusion 1 BUILDING SUCCESSFUL BRANDS ON THE INTERNET CHAPTER 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 THE INTERNET 33 34 34 35 35 39 40 43 Introduction Overview of the Internet 4.2.1 The Defining Characteristics of the Internet The Growth of the Internet The Internet & e-Commerce The Impact of the Internet...
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...C O D E C ODE v e r s i o n 2 . 0 L A W R E N C E L E S S I G A Member of the Perseus Books Group New York Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Lessig CC Attribution-ShareAlike Published by Basic Books A Member of the Perseus Books Group Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Basic Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016–8810. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142, or call (617) 252-5298, (800) 255-1514 or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com. CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-10: 0–465–03914–6 ISBN-13: 978–0–465–03914–2 06 07 08 09 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Code version 1.0 FOR CHARLIE NESSON, WHOSE EVERY IDEA SEEMS CRAZY FOR ABOUT A YEAR. Code version 2.0 TO WIKIPEDIA, THE ONE SURPRISE THAT TEACHES MORE THAN EVERYTHING HERE. C O N T E N T S Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition Chapter 1. Code Is Law Chapter 2. Four Puzzles from Cyberspace PART I: “REGULABILITY” ix xiii 1 9 Chapter 3. Is-Ism: Is the Way It Is the Way It Must Be? Chapter 4. Architectures of Control Chapter 5. Regulating Code PART II: REGULATION BY CODE 31 38 61 Chapter 6. Cyberspaces Chapter 7. What Things Regulate...
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...Order Code RL33199 Data Security Breaches: Context and Incident Summaries Updated May 7, 2007 Rita Tehan Information Research Specialist Knowledge Services Group Data Security Breaches: Context and Incident Summaries Summary Personal data security breaches are being reported with increasing regularity. Within the past few years, numerous examples of data such as Social Security, bank account, credit card, and driver’s license numbers, as well as medical and student records have been compromised. A major reason for the increased awareness of these security breaches is a California law that requires notice of security breaches to the affected individuals. This law, implemented in July 2003, was the first of its kind in the nation. State data security breach notification laws require companies and other entities that have lost data to notify affected consumers. As of January 2007, 35 states have enacted legislation requiring companies or state agencies to disclose security breaches involving personal information. Congress is considering legislation to address personal data security breaches, following a series of high-profile data security breaches at major financial services firms, data brokers (including ChoicePoint and LexisNexis), and universities. In the past three years, multiple measures have been introduced, but to date, none have been enacted. This report will be updated regularly. Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....
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...A GUIDE TO FORENSIC ACCOUNTING INVESTIGATION THOMAS W. GOLDEN, STEVEN L. SKALAK, AND MONA M. CLAYTON JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. A GUIDE TO FORENSIC ACCOUNTING INVESTIGATION THOMAS W. GOLDEN, STEVEN L. SKALAK, AND MONA M. CLAYTON JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2006 by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the individual member firms of the worldwide PricewaterhouseCoopers organization. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this...
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...ICMR Case Collection C op y ICFAI Center for Management Research ot Governance Issues at the New York Stock Exchange N BECG 035 D o This case was written by K. Subhadra, under the direction of Sanjib Dutta, ICFAI Center for Management Research (ICMR). It was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or in effective handling of a management situation. 2004 ICFAI Center for Management Research. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission. For enquiries regarding bulk purchases and reprint permissions, please call 91-40-23430462/63 or write to ICFAI Center for Management Research, 49, Nagarjuna Hills, Panjagutta, Hyderabad 500082, India or email icmr@icfai.org. Copies of this case can also be purchased online from the ICMR website, www.icmrindia.org. BECG/035 GOVERNANCE ISSUES AT THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE “The New York Stock Exchange is long overdue for a very serious and thorough examination and overhaul of its governance. The very fact that they nominate their own board without any input from anyone else should not be tolerated.” - Nell Minow, Editor, Corporate-Governance Research Firm - The Corporate Library in August 2003.1 op y “Today, we take an important...
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...Management Fall 2009 Non-financial risk assessment in mergers, acquisitions and investments Identifying sources of business risk in the ICT industry Bachelors thesis Erik Allenstr¨m, 1984-11-26 o Fredrik Njurell, 1984-01-30 ¨ Tutor: Osten Ohlsson January 14, 2010 Abstract The number of company mergers and acquisition activities has increased dramatically the last two decades. The reasons for conducting these activities are many and the uncertainties of their results are high. To reduce the uncertainties when making an investment, merger or acquisition it is vital to do a thorough assessment of the risks involved with the activity. This thesis focuses on a specific part of this risk assessment, namely the non-financial risks. Mergers and acquisitions are done in almost all industries around the world and the reasons for and benefits of these activities can vary between industries. We have chosen to investigate the risk assessment of non-financial risks in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry. The thesis aims at investigating what business characteristics, for companies in the ICT industry, that give rise to non-financial risks that must be assessed when doing investments, mergers or acquisitions. Further on we present a risk pattern that points out what business characteristics that are the most important when conducting a risk assessment of non-financial risks on companies in the ICT industry. From a literature study we find evidence that ten different...
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...FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING INFORMATION AND THE RELEVANCE/IRRELEVANCE ISSUE (Global Business & Economics Review Volume 5 No.2 December 2003 pp:140-175) Stanley C. W. Salvary, Canisius College ABSTRACT Some current research conclude that the numbers in financial statements are not relevant for three basic reasons. The numbers: (1) are not isomorphic with capital market values, (2) do not have a future orientation, and (3) are un-interpretable since they are based upon five different measurement attributes. The lack of isomorphism argument is invalid since actual current performance is not identical with the capital market expectations of future performance. The lack of a future orientation argument is invalid since financial statements capture what has happened and not what is expected to happen. Since a single measurement attribute is required to produce meaningful measures, the un-interpretability argument holds. A unique measurement attribute is identified in this paper to address this problem I. INTRODUCTION In Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 1: Objectives of Financial Reporting by Business Enterprises (SFAC1) [1978], the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) maintains that the function of financial accounting is to generate information useful to a group of users (investors and creditors) for decision-making. The focus on that specific function (decision-making) leads to a concern for predictive value, as opposed to feedback value, in financial statements...
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...2009 Do Stock Mergers Create Value for Acquirers? PAVEL G. SAVOR and QI LU∗ ABSTRACT This paper finds support for the hypothesis that overvalued firms create value for long-term shareholders by using their equity as currency. Any approach centered on abnormal returns is complicated by the fact that the most overvalued firms have the greatest incentive to engage in stock acquisitions. We solve this endogeneity problem by creating a sample of mergers that fail for exogenous reasons. We find that unsuccessful stock bidders significantly underperform successful ones. Failure to consummate is costlier for richly priced firms, and the unrealized acquirer-target combination would have earned higher returns. None of these results hold for cash bids. THE LATE 1990S WITNESSED a large mergers and acquisitions wave. Many transactions involved equity as the mode of payment (Andrade, Mitchell, and Stafford (2001), Holmstrom and Kaplan (2001)), and this equity was usually very richly valued by historical standards. The positive correlation between market valuation and merger activity has also been documented in other periods (Martin (1996), Verter (2002)) and is especially strong for stock deals (Maksimovic and Phillips (2001)). One interpretation of this evidence is that managers try to time the market by paying with stock when they believe it is overvalued. Recently, a number of papers formally recognized this link between possible mispricing and acquisition activity. Shleifer and...
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