Accounting Scandals

Corporate accounting scandals are political and business scandals

which arise with the disclosure of misdeeds by trusted executives of large

public corporations. Such misdeeds typically involve complex methods

for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating

expenses, overstating the value of corporate assets or underreporting the

existence of liabilities. In public companies, this type of “creative ac-

counting” can amount to fraud and investigations are typically launched

by government oversight agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC) in the United States.

In 2002, a wave of separate but often related accounting scandals be-

came known to the public in the U.S. Several leading public accounting

firms − Arthur Andersen, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG,

PricewaterhouseCoopers, and others − have admitted to or have been

charged with negligence in the execution of their duty as auditors to

identify and prevent the publication of falsified financial reports by their

corporate clients which had the effect of giving a misleading impression

of their client companies' financial status. In several cases, the monetary

amounts of the fraud involved are in the billions of dollars.

3. Scan the text again and find the English equivalents of the following

Russian collocations.

Разоблачение преступлений; злоупотребление денежными фон-

дами; завышать доходы; занижать расходы; занижение сведений

об обязательствах; манипуляции с бухгалтерской отчетностью; мо-

шенничество; начать расследование; надзорный орган; предъяв-

лять обвинение в халатности; давать искаженное представление;

финансовое положение.

4. Work with a partner. Put the events in Enron’s history into the correct

order. Start with D.