Feedback on the Livent accounting scandal

In case you missed it, I blogged about the censure handed down from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario to three of their members relating to their mishandling of Livent Inc's audits.

Sam E Antar, reformed white collar felon, and outspoken advocate against corporate fraud has used the Livent case as grist for his mill, and has some pointed things to say on the subject.

The accounting profession is still not adequately prepared to do battle with white collar criminals. Today, less than 20% of accounting students ever take a single specific college level course devoted to fraud or criminology before graduation. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants only “suggests” rather than “requires” that CPAs take a mere 10% of their continuing education credits in fraud subjects.
Audits are too often used as training grounds for relatively inexperienced staff members. I doubt even today from seeing the mistakes of Crazy Eddie’s auditors and other audit melt downs being repeated by other auditors time and time again that the accounting profession really understands their main enemy – the white collar criminal. The unfortunate result of this lack of understanding has resulted in billions of dollars in unnecessary litigation costs and payouts for many accounting firms and even countless billions in shareholder and creditor losses.

I think that between them, Sam E Antar and forensic accountant Al Rosen could probably develop an effective curriculum for accounting students.

Many thanks to Mr Antar for lending his expertise to the topic!

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