Major Financial Reporting Frauds of the 21st Century: Corporate Governance and Risk Lessons Learned

Abstract

Major financial reporting frauds of the 21st Century are studied in this paper for lessons learned and strategies to reduce the incidence of such frauds in the future. As Howard Schilit observed: “I read recently that the one lesson we have learned from history is that we have learned nothing from history. Yet my mantra remains that in order to find fraud, we must study the history of fraud. A common element in all the fraud I have described is that their warning signs were not hard to find; in fact, they were hard to miss."

Keywords: financial fraud, corporate governance

JEL Classification: G30