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Accounting Ethics Case

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Submitted By ascott0173
Words 3187
Pages 13
Archie R. Scott, Jr.
Ethics Case Project 1
Dr. N. Amoah

Introduction As the Chief Financial Officer for Camp Industries, I am overall responsible for the information contained in the Financial Statements for the company that shareholders use in making investment decisions and creditors use in making credit decisions. Camp Industries is the defendant in a class action suit filed in the amount of $44 million. After an informal conversation with in house legal counsel, I learn that it is remote that the company will win this lawsuit and our counsel feels that we will probably lose $30 million. Upon sharing this information with a co-worker, it is pointed out that accrual of loss contingencies for unsettled litigation is rare, in practice. My co-worker also points out that if we disclose that management believes that it is probable that Camp Industries will lose a specific dollar amount, that this could serve as ammunition for the opposing legal counsel. His opinion is that a loss should not be accrued and recorded until a final settlement has been reached in the lawsuit. This ethical dilemma deals with loss contingencies. According to our textbook, “a loss contingency is an existing, uncertain situation involving potential loss depending on whether some future event occurs”. (Spiceland, Sepe, & Nelson, 2012) In dealing with loss contingencies, two criteria must be determined, the likelihood that the event will occur and the estimation of the dollar amount of the potential loss. To determine the likelihood that the event will occur, we use three categories: “Probable – The future event or events are likely to occur; reasonably possible – The chance of the future event or events occurring is more than remote but less than likely; and remote – The chance of the future event or events occurring is slight”. (FASB Accounting Standards Codification, 2013)

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