Accounting

Olympus update – lawsuit against former chairman & former CEO gives up trying to get his job back

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Olympus has sued its former chairman and two other individuals. According to the Wall Street Journal article, Olympus Sues Former Chairman (all articles behind a pay wall), when the company made announcement, they didn’t give details of the suit or even say exactly how people are being sued.

Most interesting tidbit in the article is the lawsuit was based upon an independent report from three lawyers regarding the role of the board in the scandal. That report will be released on January 10, according to the article.

Hint that there’s major, useful news on the horizon:

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My guest post at re:The Auditors on accounting for the Olympus fraud

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Francine McKenna asked me to combine my short comments on the Olympus fraud into a guest post on her blog.

I’m quite happy to announce my revised, expanded, and edited discussion is available. You can read the full thing at How Do You Hide A Multibillion Dollar Loss? Accounting For The Olympus Fraud

Many thanks to Francine for the wonderful opportunity to speak to a big audience.

Series of posts on GIK valuation

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I have started a series of posts at my other blog, Nonprofit Update, discussing gift in kind valuation issues. 

Those posts are written for an audience of non-accountants. The CPAs reading this blog who work with nonprofit organizations might get something out of those posts.  There is a bit of commotion in the NPO community on valuation.  Description of my posts with embedded links:

How I make corrections and updates to posts

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This would be a good time to explain how I make changes on posts. The etiquette in the blogging world seems to be that changes and corrections should be clearly identified.  That’s a great idea.

Here’s my protocol:

The original comments will be left in the post.

Corrections and deletions will be marked through with strikeout.

Update comments will be identified Update: with the word update and italicized comment.

Small updates will be italicized right after a strikeout. For illustration example.

Minor typos will be corrected without a special notation, unless it has significance to the article.

With two different series of posts I’m working on now, I’m making a number of corrections, so thought it worthwhile to mention this.

Olympus releases restated earnings- an auditor’s observation

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Olympus had a hard deadline of Wednesday to file its second quarter earnings report or face automatic delisting from the stock exchange.  It met the deadline.

Along with the quarterly report, Olympus announced restated financial statements for the last five years.

Here are a few tidbits from today’s news reports of interest to us auditors.

Size of the fraud hasn’t change – currently at $1.58B.

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Summary of Olympus financial fraud – part 2a

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Article in the Wall Street Journal on 12-7-11 gives more background on the methodology of the Olympus fraud:  Panel Calls Olympus ‘Rotten’ at Core. (article behind paywall)

I made a few updates on my part 2 post. Have a few more comments in this post – things that are interesting to me.

Hiding losses was legal and normal

Apparently, moving underwater investments off the books was so common in Japan that it had a nickname, tobashi.  …

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Summary of Olympus financial fraud – part 2

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Previous post described the investigative report of the Olympus financial fraud.

Now a discussion of the debits and credits. Final post will discuss the underlying causes identify by the investigative committee and some of their recommendations.

Update 2 – When accounting rules changed in 2000, the report says Olympus management decided to move the investments off the books instead of taking the write down. Thus phase 1 was launched.

How do you hide a $1.7B loss?

This is what I was most curious about and what prompted me to read the report.

Here is a one paragraph summary from the report: …

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Summary of Olympus financial fraud – based on independent report – part 1

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The investigative report on the Olympus fraud has been released. The fact pattern, causes, and recommendations are scathing.

This and my followup post are a thumbnail description.  These are the result of just an hour or two of research.  If you wish to expand the summary, point out errors, or clarify, feel free to do so.  My guess is that readers of this blog won’t want as many details as I am providing, but do want to know more than just what shows up in the general news reports.

You can see one news article here: Olympus faces Tokyo delisting after management hid $1.7 billion of losses.

The Wall Street Journal has a good report, but it is behind a pay wall. WSJ also has a copy of the report, but I caution you on getting their copy.  I was able to access the report once, but when I went back to it, accessing the report crashed my computer. Twice.

Update: Olympus has made the report available here.

The report’s conclusion compares management to a cancer:

Olympus had originally been a sound company, with diligent employees and high technical strength. Not all part (sic) of the company was involved in this misconduct. Olympus should remove its malignant tumor and literally renew itself. (Page 30)

What is the amount of the fraud and time frame?

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Some clues to interpret behind-the-scenes fight over Little GAAP

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Don’t know about you, but I’m not perceptive enough at reading the back room maneuvering to figure out what is going in the battle for turf between the AICPA and FASB over Little GAAP and Big GAAP.

I’m smart enough to know there is a fight.  See my post here for discussion of AICPA announcing they will set up a new standard-setting body if FAF goes forward with its plan to keep PCSIC (Pic-sic?) under the control of FASB.

In his post Little GAAP – Big GAAP Territorial Fight, John Hufnagle suggests that a few of the FASB’s recent projects are designed to make GAAP more user-friendly for private companies.  Here are three illustrations: …

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Not so fond memories of Enron

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December 2 was the 10th anniversary of the Enron bankruptcy.

Just a few of the big consequences of that massive fraud were Sarbanes-Oxley legislation and the bankruptcy of Arthur Andersen. 

Two of the subtle consequences are that it’s now a federal felony to destroy any documents after a federal investigation has begun (when the IRS or ICE has merely started asking questions about one of your clients, it becomes a felony to do a routine shredding in your office or cleanup of your e-mail) and PCAOB is setting standards for public company audits.

If you need to refresh your memory of what happened, here are just a few of the recent blog posts discussing that not-so-wonderful time:

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GAAP Guide – Research tool for CPAs

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You may recall the Miller GAAP Guide from days long past.  It’s now the CCH GAAP Guide.  The 2012 edition will be published 12-26-11.

You really should have a copy handy.  It is a superb research tool for CPAs having to deal with issues they haven’t delved into before.

I was honored to have been asked to look at the revisions for the current year.  Just finished that project this week.  It has been a few years since I looked at the book.  Looking at it again reminded me of what an incredible resource it is.

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Update on project to overhaul financial statement presentation

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At the 2011 CalCPA A&A conference, Suzan C. Dennis, CPA, discussed the FASB’s project to completely change the presentation of financial statements.  I previously discussed that here. What she provided is background you won’t read in the official documents.

Just a quick recap.  If you think about the current cash flow statement, you will recall that it summarizes cash flows in three sections: operating, investing, and financing.  Transactions related to purchasing or liquidating investments or equipment are in the investing section. Loans and equity transactions are in the financing section.

To get a very rough picture of what’s involved in changing the financial statement presentation, imagine restructuring the balance sheet and income statement into the same format as a cash flow statement.  …

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“Once Upon Internal Control” is available on Kindle platform

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My tale on internal control done well and poor at two churches is now available in Kindle format at Amazon.

Price is $0.99.

You can read the book on your Kindle device, on any smart phone with a Kindle app, or on your computer using the Kindle-for-PC application.

At Amazon, search for my name, Ulvog, or the book title, Once Upon Internal Control.

Or click here to go directly to the book.

Time to start paying attention to the Olympus accounting fiasco

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Yeah, Olympus.  The people who made that cool camera you’ve been using.

Here’s the story in one sentence: It looks like Olympus has been materially cooking the books since the late 1990s.

In one paragraph:

The maker of cameras and medical-imaging equipment said Tuesday that it used four acquisitions in 2008 to “clear up” paper losses on investments dating to the 1990s. Asahi and KPMG AZSA signed off on Olympus’s statements for those years. There’s no indication that the accounting firm signed statements that it knew were misleading or incorrect.

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