會計造假及其監(jiān)測的當前趨勢研究外文翻譯

1、<p><b>　　中文4075字</b></p><p>　　本科畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計）</p><p>　　外 文 翻 譯</p><p>　　外文題目 Current Trends in Fraud and its Detection </p><p>　　外文出處 Inform

2、ation Security Journal: A Global Perspective </p><p>　　外文作者 Albrecht W.Steve，Albrecht Chad，Albrecht Conan C</p><p><b>　　原文：</b></p><p>　　Current Trends in Fraud and it

3、s Detection</p><p>　　INTRODUCTION</p><p>　　Executives and employees of most organizations conduct business with integrity. Their financial statements are transparent and represent the financial

4、state of the organization. However, some succumb to pressures and opportunities to make their companies look better than they really are. These individuals often seek to unduly enrich themselves in their stewardship role

5、s, increase their financial status, or gain the respect of others through a dishonest image. While it may seem that fraud is cent</p><p>　　Society has long held that the protector—the “public watchdog (Unite

6、d States v. Arthur Young & Co., 1984)”—against this dishonest minority in public companies is the financial statement auditor. In the United States, Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commi

7、ssion (SEC), explained an auditor’s role this way: “America’s auditors were given a franchise by the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 to provide the public with accurate audited statements of companies . . . And thei<

8、/p><p>　　Over the last decade, there have been numerous frauds discovered in companies throughout the world. These frauds include Enron, WorldCom, Cendant, Adelphia, Parmalat, Royal Ahold, Vivendi, and SK Globa

9、l. In most cases, it was alleged that the auditors should have detected the frauds and, as a result, they were sued for performing negligent audits. In order to determine whether auditors should be held liable for fraud,

10、 it is important to review why these large scale frauds occurred and the legisl</p><p>　　WHY FRAUD OCCURS</p><p>　　Fraud researchers have found three elements common to all frauds. These three e

11、lements of the fraud triangle are (1) perceived pressure, (2) perceived opportunity, and (3) some way to rationalize the fraud as acceptable and consistent with one’s personal code of ethics (Albrecht et al., 2006a). Whe

12、ther the dishonest act involves fraud against a company, such as employee embezzlement, or fraud on behalf of a company, such as management fraud, these three elements are always present. Figure 1 illu</p><p&g

13、t;　　Every fraud perpetrator faces some kind of perceived pressure. Most pressures involve a financial need, although nonfinancial pressures such as the need to report results better than actual performance, frustration w

14、ith work, or even a challenge to beat the system, can also motivate fraud. Note that this element is perceived pressure, not necessarily real pressure. Pressures perceived by one individual, such as a gambling addiction,

15、 may not be pressures to another individual. Examples of perceiv</p><p>　　Fraud perpetrators must also have a perceived opportunity that allows the fraud act. Even with intense perceived pressures, executive

16、s who believe they will be caught and punished rarely commit fraud (Albrecht et al., 2006b). Executives who believe they have an opportunity to commit and/or conceal fraud often give in to their perceived pressures. Perc

17、eived opportunities to commit management fraud include factors such as a weak board of directors or inadequate internal controls. Finally, fraud pe</p><p>　　These three elements of the fraud triangle are int

18、eractive. With fraud, the greater the perceived opportunity or the more intense the pressure, the less rationalization it takes for someone to commit fraud. Likewise, the more dishonest a perpetrator is and the easier it

19、 is for him or her to rationalize deviant behavior, the less opportunity and/or pressure it takes to motivate fraud.</p><p>　　REASON RECENT LARGE-SCALE FRAUDS OCCURRED</p><p>　　The fraud triangl

20、e provides insight into why recent financial statement frauds occurred. In addition to the factors that motivate a person to commit fraud, there were several specific elements that led to the largescale frauds of the pas

21、t decade (Albrecht et al., 2004). These elements contributed to a perfect storm that led to the massive frauds of the last few years.</p><p>　　The first element of this perfect storm was the masking of many

22、existing problems and unethical actions by the expanding economies of the 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, most businesses appeared to be highly profitable, including many new “dot-com” companies that were testin

23、g new and unproven (and many times unprofitable) business models. The economy was booming, and investment was high. In this period of perceived success, people made nonsensical investment and other decisions.The adve<

24、/p><p>　　The second element of the perfect storm was the moral decay that had been occurring in the United States and around the world. Political correctness did many good things for society, but it also veiled

25、 dishonesty in new language that allowed some to rationalize fraudulent behavior. Many role models in sports, politics, and movies were no longer examples of honesty and integrity. While some may argue that role models h

26、ave been dishonest or immoral throughout history, the significantly increased a</p><p>　　The third element of the perfect storm was misplaced executive incentives. For example, agency theory’s solution of al

27、igning executive pay with company performance was practiced to the extreme in many cases ( Jensen and Meckling, 1976). Executives of many fraudulent companies were endowed with hundreds of millions of dollars in stock op

28、tions and/or restricted stock that placed more pressure on keeping the stock price rising than on reporting financial results accurately. In many cases, this stoc</p><p>　　The fourth element of the perfect s

29、torm—and one closely related to the last—was the often unachievable expectations of Wall Street analysts that primarily targeted short-term behavior. Company boards and management, generally lacking alternative performan

30、ce metrics, used comparisons with the stock price of “similar” firms and attainment of analyst expectations as important defacto performance measures. These stock-based incentives compounded the pressure induced by analy

31、st expectations. Each qua</p><p>　　The fifth element in the perfect storm was the large amounts of debt and leverage held by each of these fraudulent companies. This debt placed tremendous financial pressure

32、 on executives to not only have high earnings to offset high interest costs but also to report high earnings to meet debt and other covenants. For example, Enron’s derivatives-related liabilities increased from $1.8 bill

33、ion to $10.5 billion during 2000 alone. Similarly, WorldCom had more than $100 billion in debt when it filed</p><p>　　The sixth element of the perfect storm was the nature of U.S. accounting rules. In contra

34、st to accounting practices in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are much more rule-based than principles-based.4 If a client chose a particular

35、 questionable method of accounting that was not specifically prohibited by GAAP, it was hard for auditors or others to argue that the client couldn’t use that accounting method. The existing </p><p>　　Consid

36、er the case of Enron. Even if Andersen had argued that Enron’s Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) weren’t appropriate, it would have been impossible for Andersen to make the case that they were against any specific rules. S

37、ome have suggested that one of the reasons it took so long to get plea bargains or indictments in the Enron case was because it wasn’t immediately clear whether GAAP or any laws had actually been broken.</p><p

38、>　　A seventh element of the perfect fraud storm was the opportunistic behavior of some CPA firms. In some cases, accounting firms used audits as loss leaders to establish relationships with companies so they could sel

39、l more lucrative consulting services. The rapid growth of the consulting practices of the Big 5 accounting firms, which was much higher than the growth of other consulting firms, attested to the fact that it is much easi

40、er to sell consulting services to existing audit clients than to n</p><p>　　The eighth element of the perfect storm was greed by executives, investment banks, commercial banks, and investors. Each of these g

41、roups benefited from the strong economy, the high level of lucrative transactions, and the apparently high profits of companies. None of them wanted to accept bad news. As a result, they sometimes ignored negative news a

42、nd entered into unwise transactions.5 For example, in the Enron case, various commercial and investment banks made hundreds of millions from Enron’s </p><p>　　Finally, the ninth element of the perfect storm

43、was three types of educator failures. First, educators had not provided sufficient ethics training to students. By not forcing students to face realistic ethical dilemmas in the classroom, graduates were ill-equipped to

44、deal with the real ethical dilemmas they faced in the business world. In one allegedly fraudulent scheme, for example, participants included virtually the entire senior management of the company, including but not limite

45、d to its for</p><p>　　A second educator failure was not teaching students about fraud. One author of this paper has taught a fraud course to business students for several years. It is his experience that mos

46、t business school graduates would not recognize a fraud if it hit them between the eyes. The large majority of business students don’t understand the elements of fraud, perceived pressures and opportunities, the process

47、of rationalization, or red flags that indicate the possible presence of dishonest behavior. Whe</p><p>　　The third educator failure has been to neglect exploration of possible relationships between various t

48、heories of management behavior and fraudulent activity. Stewardship theory and agency theory are among many theoretical models that have implications in fraud acts.</p><p>　　Source：Information Security Journ

49、al: A Global Perspective，2008，(17)：2-12.</p><p><b>　　譯文：</b></p><p>　　會計造假及其監(jiān)測的當前趨勢研究</p><p><b>　　引言</b></p><p>　　大多數(shù)公司的高管和雇員是誠信經(jīng)營的。他們的財務(wù)報表是透明的，

50、并且代表了企業(yè)的財務(wù)狀況。然而，有一些企業(yè)的員工則由于某種外界的壓力或者機遇，通過造假來粉飾企業(yè)的財務(wù)狀況。這些公司的管理層往往過分追求自我發(fā)展，通過虛假的報表來美化財務(wù)狀況或者獲得其他人的尊重。雖然看起來似乎欺詐行為集中在某些行業(yè)，事實上這些少數(shù)的不誠實的人存在于每個專業(yè)及產(chǎn)業(yè)。</p><p>　　社會長期以來認為財務(wù)報表審計可以對抗上市公司會計造假現(xiàn)象。美國證監(jiān)會的前任主席——亞瑟?萊維特是這樣定義審計師的

51、：“1933年證券法規(guī)定審計師必須為大眾提供公司的準確審計報告……審計師的職責(zé)是使投資者遠離金融欺詐。”</p><p>　　在過去的十年里，全世界爆發(fā)了許多會計造假事件，涉及到的公司有安然公司、世通公司、圣達特集團、菲亞公司、帕瑪拉特公司、皇家阿霍德公司、威望迪公司以及北歐航空公司。在大多數(shù)的事件當中，審計師應(yīng)該可以察覺到舞弊行為，最后由于審計師的過失審計而被起訴。為了明確審計人員是否應(yīng)該為舞弊現(xiàn)象負責(zé)，我們應(yīng)

52、該對這些大型造假事件發(fā)生的原因以及法律法規(guī)進行研究。本文探討了財務(wù)報表審計的職責(zé)以及審計師是否應(yīng)該為會計造假負責(zé)的問題。我們討論了會計造假出現(xiàn)的原因以及近十年大規(guī)模會計丑聞發(fā)生的原因。我們回顧了在這方面的會計準則及條例，包括紐約證券交易所和全美證券交易商自動報價系統(tǒng)協(xié)會對一些條例的修改，以及薩班斯-奧克斯法案的新準則。最后，針對這些新準則、法律法規(guī)在未來對減少舞弊是否能充分發(fā)揮其作用發(fā)表了自己的觀點。</p><p&

53、gt;<b>　　會計造假發(fā)生的原因</b></p><p>　　研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)所有會計造假共通的三個要素。這三要素為：（1）壓力；（2）機會；（3）借口。無論是員工盜用公款，或者管理層舞弊，這些欺詐行為中，這三個要素永遠存在。</p><p>　　造假人員的造假行為的發(fā)生必須有相應(yīng)的契機。即使在強壓之下，主管們也認為他們的造假行為很難被抓到或者因此受到懲罰。高管們認為

54、他們有機會去造假，并且造假的行為可以被隱瞞得很好，所以他們往往屈服于某種壓力。董事會的形同虛設(shè)或者內(nèi)部控制的薄弱，都給公司管理層舞弊提供了機會。最后，造假人員必須擁有一些理由使他們的造假行為合理化。這些理由一般是抬高股價的需要，所有公司都在使用積極的會計實務(wù)，或者是說這樣做對公司有好處。</p><p>　　會計造假的這三個因素是相互作用的。機會越有利或者壓力越大，欺詐行為就更合理化。同樣地，造假者越不把誠信當回

55、事，或者造假對他來說很容易，那么誘發(fā)造假行為需要的機會就越少。</p><p>　　近期大規(guī)模造假事件發(fā)生的原因</p><p>　　以上所說的三個因素是對財務(wù)造假發(fā)生的深入觀察。除此之外還有其他因素使人開始弄虛作假，有幾個特殊的元素導(dǎo)致了近10年的欺詐橫行。這些元素導(dǎo)致了近幾年大量的造假事件像完美風(fēng)暴一樣發(fā)生。</p><p>　　第一個導(dǎo)致這場完美風(fēng)暴的元素是在

56、1990年到2000年經(jīng)濟發(fā)展時存在的問題和不道德的行為。在這期間，很多企業(yè)看上去盈利很多，也包括了一些網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司，這些網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司也在測試一些新的商業(yè)盈利模式（很多都是虧損的）。經(jīng)濟在擴張，投資在加大。在這個能感覺到的成功下，人們開始做一些沒有意義的投資和其他的決策。小網(wǎng)絡(luò)投資的出現(xiàn)帶動了很多新人到了股票市場?，F(xiàn)在很清楚了，其實很多欺詐發(fā)生在經(jīng)濟發(fā)展的時期，但是經(jīng)濟增長掩蓋了這些欺詐行為。經(jīng)濟的增長還讓執(zhí)行主管，董事會成員和股東們開始相信他

57、們的企業(yè)比他們預(yù)期的要成功，而且他們企業(yè)的成功還歸功于他們良好的管理體系。還有研究表明，經(jīng)濟增長的持續(xù)時間過長會模糊一個企業(yè)對成功的理解，同時會增長錯誤決策的可能性。</p><p>　　第二個因素是道德的淪喪，不僅在美國，全世界各地也都如此。政策修訂有很多好處，但是同時也會被少數(shù)人鉆了空子，使得一些舞弊行為合理化。很多體育明星、政治楷模、影視明星不再是誠實和正直的代表。有人可能會說在歷史上榜樣本來就不都是誠實和

58、道德的，可是近幾十年來他們的行為通過媒體報道、網(wǎng)絡(luò)傳播，傳播更加廣泛，影響了生產(chǎn)人員，同時也給年輕人帶來不良的影響。無論正直的定義是什么，不誠信的現(xiàn)象似乎都在增加。</p><p>　　完美風(fēng)暴的第三個因素是錯位的行政激勵措施。比如，在很多情況下，管理人員的薪酬跟公司的績效密切聯(lián)系。許多造假公司的首席執(zhí)行官持有數(shù)億美元的股票期權(quán)或者限制股票，所以股票價格的不斷上漲就比財務(wù)報告的準確性來得重要了。在許多案例中，對于

59、高管來說，從股票當中獲取的利益遠遠超過了他們從工資中獲取的利益。許多首席執(zhí)行官都將注意力從管理公司轉(zhuǎn)移到了“管理”股票價格。以數(shù)以億計的美元為代價，操縱股票價格往往變成了財務(wù)造假。</p><p>　　第四個因素是短期通常無法完成的華爾街分析師的預(yù)期目標。公司的董事會和管理層通常根據(jù)比較股票的價格和是否達到了分析師的預(yù)期目標來進行績效評價。這種績效評價標準將分析師的預(yù)期目標變成一種壓力。每個季度，分析師都會被自己

60、公司要求預(yù)期每股收益。這種預(yù)期將股票價格的變動變成公司期望達到的股票價格。高管們明白達不到預(yù)期的后果非常嚴重，就算在其他方面很突出，但有少許沒有符合標準，就有可能使公司的股價下跌得非常厲害。</p><p>　　完美風(fēng)暴中的第五個元素是債務(wù)，并由這些不法公司充分利用和各自大量持有。這種債務(wù)將經(jīng)理人置于巨大的財政壓力下，不僅利用高收益高利息來抵消成本，而且還用高收益的財務(wù)報告，以應(yīng)付債務(wù)及其他條款。例如，安然公司的

61、與衍生品相關(guān)的債務(wù)僅2000年就從18億美元增加至105億。同樣，世界通信公司創(chuàng)造歷史上最大的破產(chǎn)時債務(wù)已超過1000億美元。2002年期間，僅186家上市公司，包括安然公司，菲亞公司和環(huán)球電訊，以3680億美元的債務(wù)申請破產(chǎn)。</p><p>　　完美風(fēng)暴的第六個要素是美國的會計準則的性質(zhì)。相對于其他國家的會計實務(wù)，如英國和澳大利亞，美國一般公認會計準則（GAAP）是更加有章可循的。如果公司選擇了一種特殊的會計

62、處理方法，沒有具體按公認會計原則上的條例，審計師或者其他任何人都很難去針對他是不是可以這樣做而去爭論些什么。現(xiàn)有的一般原則已包含在公認會計準則的前提下，使某一特定會計處理已被禁止，不違反規(guī)則，不承受審計員和其他顧問尋求創(chuàng)造競爭優(yōu)勢可能通過識別和利用漏洞，就很難使令人信服的。專業(yè)的判斷，已經(jīng)在會計準則和美國證券交易委員會規(guī)定的一般原則中失效或者被忽略或最小化。其結(jié)果是，與遵從舊的準則相比，建立新的一般準則，或者特殊準則更值得考慮。<

63、/p><p>　　考慮到安然事件，即使安德森辯稱，安然公司特殊目的實體（SPEs）是不恰當?shù)?，這也不足以讓安達信公司違背任何具體的準則而協(xié)助安然公司造假。一些人認為花了這么久才讓安然公司認罪或起訴是因為尚不清楚是否已經(jīng)打破了會計準則或法律。</p><p>　　第七個要素是一些會計師事務(wù)所的機會主義行為。在某些情況下，會計師事務(wù)所審計的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人用豐厚的咨詢服務(wù)建立與公司的關(guān)系，使他們能賣出更多的

64、利潤。五大會計師事務(wù)所遠高于其他咨詢公司的增長速度證明了一個事實，即它們給現(xiàn)有的審計客戶提供服務(wù)比給新客戶提供咨詢業(yè)務(wù)要容易得多。在許多情況下，為同一客戶服務(wù)，審計費用比咨詢費用少得多，并且會計師事務(wù)所感覺以這種方式增加利潤，獨立性和機會之間的沖突更小。特別是，這些替代服務(wù)模糊了一些審計人員的焦點，使他們成為商業(yè)顧問，而不是審計師。這在安達信公司是真實存在的，它花了相當多的精力來經(jīng)營咨詢業(yè)務(wù)，從而分成一個獨立的公司（現(xiàn)稱埃森哲）。私底下

65、，安達信公司的一些合作伙伴承認，安達信公司和它的一些合作伙伴曾經(jīng)發(fā)誓要拜托“咨詢公司”的名號。</p><p>　　這場完美風(fēng)暴的第八個因素是高管、投資銀行、商業(yè)銀行和投資者的貪婪。他們從強勁的經(jīng)濟、高水準的厚利交易和表面上高收益的公司中受益。沒有人想要接受壞消息。因此，這些團體有時會不顧負面新聞而義無反顧的進行不明智的交易。舉例來說，在安然事件中，各種各樣的商業(yè)和投資銀行除了上千萬的貸款利息和費用之外，從安然利

66、潤豐厚的投資銀行業(yè)務(wù)交易中賺取了億萬的收入。沒有一家投資企業(yè)在安然事件中警告投資者關(guān)于金融衍生工具和其他證券包銷方式的問題。同樣在2001年10月，當公眾收到了有關(guān)一些高管已經(jīng)放棄了安然并且有關(guān)安然的負面消息之后，17個證券分析師中仍有16個掩蓋安然公司的負面消息將其評為“強勢買入”和“買入”的等級。安然外部的法律事務(wù)所也從安然的交易中賺取大量利潤。雖然這些公司讓然沒有糾正或者披露有關(guān)衍生工具和特定實體的問題，但是在事實上，對起草必要的

67、相關(guān)法律文件起到了一定的作用。最后，三家主要的信用等級評價機構(gòu)，經(jīng)常從安然收取大量費用的穆迪、標準普爾和惠譽國際，對于這些應(yīng)該警告投資者的即將發(fā)生的問題也無動于衷。令人驚訝的是，在安然申請破產(chǎn)日的前幾周，也就是當大量的負面新聞已經(jīng)曝光，安然的股票價格跌至了每股</p><p>　　最后一個因素是三種類型的教育的失敗。首先，教育者沒有給學(xué)生提供足量的倫理學(xué)訓(xùn)練。由于在課堂上沒有被迫面對現(xiàn)實的倫理困境，畢業(yè)生并沒有做

68、好準備去面對商場中的倫理困境。在一個涉嫌欺詐的事件里，參加者幾乎包括公司所有的高級管理人員，包括前任董事長兼首席執(zhí)行官、其前總統(tǒng)、兩名前首席財務(wù)官和各種各樣的其他高級會計業(yè)務(wù)人員，總的來說，有超過20個個體參與這個方案。如此大量的參與者指出了一個已經(jīng)淪陷的道德輪盤。再來看看另外一個關(guān)于總會計師的案例。一個財務(wù)總監(jiān)指示總會計師將收入增加到超過1億美元?？倳嫀煂@個指令表示懷疑，可是沒有反抗。相反，總會計師按照要求建立了一個表格程序，內(nèi)含

69、七頁虛假的分類賬。這些欺詐是不尋常的。在許多案例中，牽扯到的造假人員并沒有前科，當他們被要求參與會計造假時，他們的自覺性很低。</p><p>　　第二種教育者的失敗是沒有教授學(xué)生關(guān)于會計造假的行為。這篇論文的其中一個作者給商學(xué)院的學(xué)生開有關(guān)欺詐的這門課程已經(jīng)有些年了。他這些年來的經(jīng)驗是許多商學(xué)院校的畢業(yè)生不能從打量他們的眼神之間意識到這是一個騙局。大量商學(xué)院的學(xué)生難以明晰造假、壓力和機遇的要素，表明不誠實行為可