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- December 7, 2022
- Article
Why Decentralized Crypto Platforms Are Weathering the Crash
By: Shai Bernstein and Scott Duke Kominers
In the past year, crypto markets dropped from $2.9 trillion in value to around $800 billion. In the wake of the collapse, crypto lenders and exchanges have been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing. What went wrong? One factor is competition. In theory, competition...
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- May 2022
- Article
When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
We examine gender differences in misconduct punishment in the financial advisory industry. We find evidence of a “gender punishment gap”: following an incident of misconduct, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Learning from Corporate Fraud and Corporate Governance Spillovers
By: Trung Nguyen
This paper finds that investors learn from their experience with corporate fraud and financial misconduct and modify their investment behavior to avoid suspicious firms and increase corporate governance efforts. More specially, mutual funds that experienced corporate...
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- Article
Is ‘Not Guilty’ the Same as ‘Innocent’? Evidence from SEC Financial Fraud Investigations
By: Eugene F. Soltes and David H. Solomon
When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors learn about the investigation only if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on...
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- March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star
By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and Tonia Labruyere
Wirecard was a German fintech company, member of the DAX30, that provided payment processing and related services. Wirecard had enjoyed large growth rates over the years and most investors and analysts were enthusiastic about the company's prospects. Wirecard's...
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- March 2021
- Article
The Effectiveness of White-Collar Crime Enforcement: Evidence from the War on Terror
By: Trung Nguyen
This paper analyzes the impact of changes in regulatory priorities and resource allocation on criminal enforcement of white‐collar criminal activities. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a shock to the FBI's priorities and allocation of investigative resources, as...
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- January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
'GEnron'? Markopolos versus General Electric (A)
By: Jonas Heese and David Lane
In August 2019, Harry Markopolos—the forensic accountant known for uncovering Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—alleged that General Electric had committed accounting fraud totaling $38 billion, coining the term “GEnron” for perceived similarities with the 2001 accounting...
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- August 2020
- Supplement
Luckin Coffee (B): Revelations of Fraud
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
This case describes revelations of fraud at Luckin Coffee, beginning with an anonymous report in January 2020 and continuing with the company’s admission in April 2020 that it had inflated its revenues by 2.2 billion RMB ($310 million), almost half its reported...
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- June 2020
- Case
Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells Fargo
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah S. Goldberg
The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale...
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- September 2019
- Case
Accounting Fraud at Tesco Stores (A)
By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan and Julia Kelley
This case describes the accounting fraud at Tesco Stores Limited (TSL), which was discovered by a senior accountant in TSL’s finance department. The accountant was concerned about TSL’s handling of commercial income, which, according to the accountant, overstated...
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- 2017
- Working Paper
The Effectiveness of White-Collar Crime Enforcement: Evidence from the War on Terror
By: Trung Nguyen
This paper studies the deterrent effect of criminal enforcement on white-collar criminal activities. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a shock to the FBI’s allocation of investigative resources and priorities, and variations in the Muslim population in the United...
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- February 2019
- Article
The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
We construct a novel database containing the universe of financial advisers in the United States from 2005 to 2015, representing approximately 10% of employment of the finance and insurance sector. We provide the first large-scale study that documents the economy-wide...
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- October 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Rio Tinto vs. the Securities and Exchange Commission
By: Aiyesha Dey, Krishna G. Palepu and Sarah Gulick
Keywords:
Coal Mining;
SEC Enforcement;
FCPA;
Mining;
Fraud;
Acquisition;
Financial Reporting;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Non-Renewable Energy;
Ethics;
Financial Management;
Investment;
Corporate Governance;
Laws and Statutes;
Lawsuits and Litigation;
Risk Management;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Financial Services Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Mozambique;
United States;
Australia;
England
- 2020
- Working Paper
Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
This paper studies the impact of the arbitrator selection process on consumer outcomes by examining roughly 9,000 consumer arbitration cases in the securities industry. Securities disputes present a good laboratory: arbitration is mandatory for all disputes,...
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- February 2016
- Case
Banking and Politics in Antebellum New York
By: David Moss and Colin Donovan
After a long period of solid Democratic control, Whigs secured a majority of seats in the New York State Assembly in 1837, the same year that a major financial panic had crippled the banking system and shaken public confidence in the state's governance. The next year,...
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- October 2015
- Article
Hormones and Ethics: Understanding the Biological Basis of Unethical Conduct
By: Jooa Julie Lee, Francesca Gino, Ellie Shuo Jin, Leslie K. Rice and Robert A. Josephs
Globally, fraud has been rising sharply over the last decade, with current estimates placing financial losses at greater than $3.7 trillion dollars annually. Unfortunately, fraud prevention has been stymied by lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of its...
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- July 2015
- Article
Executives' 'Off-the-Job' Behaviors and Financial Reporting Risk
By: Robert Davidson, Aiyesha Dey and Abbie Smith
We examine how executives' behavior outside the workplace, as measured by their ownership of luxury goods (low “frugality”) and prior legal infractions, is related to financial reporting risk. We predict and find that chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial...
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- February 2014
- Teaching Note
Olympus (A)
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Suraj Srinivasan
As 2012 approached the woes of the financial crisis seemed to be fading, companies were resuming business as usual and some of the scrutiny on corporate governance practices began to recede as well. That is until another major financial scandal emerged in Japan in the...
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- September 2013
- Case
United Rentals (A)
By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague
In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details
- March 2013
- Case
NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks...
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Keywords:
Short Selling;
Financial Accounting;
Financial Analysis;
Financial Analysts;
Valuation;
Business Analysis;
Financial Statement Analysis;
Financial Statements;
Securitization;
Securities Analysis;
Fraud;
Accounting Quality;
Accounting Red Flags;
Accounting Restatements;
Hedge Fund;
Hedge Funds;
Accounting Scandal;
Accounting Fraud;
Financial Crisis;
Financial Intermediaries;
Financial Firms;
Corporate Accountability;
Subprime Lending;
Mortgage Lending;
Accounting;
Accrual Accounting;
Fair Value Accounting;
Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Controls;
Financial Services Industry;
United States;
California