Graduate Accounting Capstone - Accounting and Audit Enforcement Research Paper

Graduate Accounting Capstone - Accounting and Audit Enforcement - Research Paper Example It provides high level of care to the patients for recovery from conditions like stroke, orthopaedic and neurological disorders, brain injury, spinal cord injury, cardiac and pulmonary conditions. HealthSouth Corporation was found to be involved in corporate accounting scandal. The Founder, who was also the Chairman and CEO of the company, was accused of influencing the employees to manipulate the figures in the financial statement and exaggerate the earnings for meeting the expectations of the stockholders. He was the first executive to be caught in the Sarbanes Oxley Act for manipulating the financial returns of the company (Will, Handelman, & Brotherton, 2012). Richard M. Scrushy was accused of conspiracy, money laundering charges, securities fraud and charges of overstating the company’s earnings by approximately $ 3 billion (Forbes, 2013). The federal investigators stated that the company intentionally overstated the earnings in the financial statement for meeting the est imates of the analysts. At the same time the company had to make efforts to hide the accounting fraud attempt from auditors. Now, the question that was raised was whether the auditors failed in finding the fraud activity or they overlooked the company’s fraud. SOX Regulations in Public Healthcare Organizations There are strict regulations imposed by the SOX Act on the public companies (Greene, 2009). It includes: Creation of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for overseeing the entire process of accounting of the organizations. Limitation in the types of services that will be provided by the accounting firms to the public companies (clients). Increase in the disclosure requirements for the public companies. Requirement of top executives in the public companies who will take the responsibility of all the contents in the financial statements. Requirement of excellent analysts for disclosing the probable conflicts of interest. Added rigorous punishments for various misdee ds and frauds. These provisions have been imposed to public companies for controlling the regulations of corporate governance and business ethics. This will prohibit them from violating the GAAP rules and manipulating the financial statements of the companies for their own benefit. SOX Regulations in For-Profit and Not-For-Profit Healthcare Organizations There has been increase in the scrutiny for both for-profit as well as not-for-profit organizations by the regulators, donors, bondholders and the rest of the external stakeholders. It is because there have been an increased suspicion among the investors and other external stakeholders about the proper maintenance of corporate governance and business ethics in the healthcare organizations. It has been found that for Not-For-Profit companies including the hospitals as well as other different healthcare organizations, there have not been very strict disclosure requirements as mandated in case of the public For-Profit organizations. Th is is a problem faced by the bondholders, investors and other stakeholders who want to judge the quality of corporate governance and management in these Not-For-Profit organiz

Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 8

Law - Essay Example The main feature of the English legal system is that it is living and constantly evolving to work in the future as well as it did in the past1. Thus the single most unique feature of the English legal system is its inheritance from common law2. Most of the characteristics commonly linked to English law and its management of righteousness are traceable to the early on growth in Western Europe of the civil and common law customs. According to Goodman (1995), "several characteristic consequences flow from the fact that law did not emanate from one centralised authority such as papacy, king or parliament. The odd growth of the common law in England developed it appears from a coincidence resemblance of the implementation after the Norman take-over by consecutive monarchs of native customs as the foundation for the governance of justice. Conflict assessment, chiefly concerning land title, was a key function for justice. Judges were nominated by the king to tour the country and decide controversies, aided by a local adjudicator included by the Normans into operational royal courts. The trial accepted a key role in the settlement of disputes. Wilson (1995) states that â€Å"Everyone takes for granted the fact that law and legal systems differ in different countries. But it is also true of legal scholarship. One reason for this is the different responsibilities legal scholars have in different countries for the maintenance and development of the local law...One result is that legal scholars in different countries may have different agendas and this may affect the subject matter, scope and even the form and style of the local legal scholarship.† According to Blackstone and Morrison (2001) common law was "... to be found in the records of our several courts of justice in books of reports and judicial decisions, and in treatises of learned sages of the profession,