ANTHONY H. CATANACH JR. is an associate professor in the School of Business at Villanova University, as well as the Cary M. Maguire Fellow at the American College Center for Ethics in Financial Services. His professional experience includes five years as an audit manager with KPMG and six years in the financial services industry. Dr. Catanach has received numerous awards for his publication, teaching, and curriculum innovation efforts. He has authored numerous articles on a variety of accounting, finance, and management issues, as well as several business education texts..
The case against three former executives at Nortel is coming to an end. Their actions have been characterized as a “fraud on the public” by the Canadian prosecutors during their closing statements. These managers at Nortel Networks Corporation allegedly used accounting tricks to buoy quarterly profits and activate various bonuses for themselves. Linda Nguen quotes [...]
Oct 082012
Feb 102012
All of the large accounting firms are experiencing litigation dealing with the issue of overtime. One such case that commenced on January 19, 2011 is Pippins, Schindler, and Lambert v. KPMG, LLP. KPMG filed several motions in this case and recently the judge denied two of them. While early, it isn’t looking good for KPMG.
Jan 232012
Richard Bove is a bank analyst who had the audacity to tell the truth, such as predicting troubles for the bank industry at the beginning of the financial crisis. BankAtlantic did not care for the truth to be revealed to the public, so it sued him. After all, Bove had no right to disclose the [...]
On November 28 Judge Rakoff rejected a proposed settlement between the SEC and Citigroup. Pundits have applauded this rebuff, many with good reasons, but everybody is still missing the point of these civil fines. And the bad guys are free to defraud investors another day.
For several years battles have raged in several courtrooms concerning whether accounting firms have a legal obligation to pay junior accountants overtime. We are sympathetic to the position of the accounting firms, but worry about the soundness of their legal reasoning and conclusions. Do accounting firms have to be consistent in different domains? For example, [...]
J. EDWARD KETZ is an associate professor of accounting in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree in accountancy, and a Ph.D., all from Virginia Tech. Professor Ketz has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1981. He also has taught at the University of Connecticut and the University of Maryland. Professor Ketz has authored and edited 17 books including Hidden Financial Risk (Wiley, 2003) which examines the corporate culture and the institutional setting that engendered recent accounting scandals. Dr. Ketz has been cited in the popular and business press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, and USA Today. He also has appeared as an accounting commentator on CNN, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg Radio.