Fraud experts expect the next few years to be a time of heightened risk as the damaging economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic create pressure and motive that can lead to wrongdoing.
A new analysis by the Anti-Fraud Collaboration provides insight on the most common types of financial statement fraud that were discovered in an analysis of SEC enforcement actions related to accounting and auditing issues from 2014 through mid-2019.
The study focused on a time of economic stability when the motivations and rationalizations associated with fraud were relatively low. It took place after the 2008 recession and before the economic downturn related to the pandemic, said Julie Bell Lindsay, the executive director of the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ), which is a member of the Anti-Fraud Collaboration and affiliated with the AICPA.