In today’s economy theft/white collar crime is on the rise. With many people facing a cut in their salary or imminent unemployment, desperate people will resort to desperate actions. Sometimes those desperate actions can take place in an organization without your knowledge. If you are in a position of responsibility, especially an executive officer of a company, ignorance of this type of crime may not be a valid defense.
The FBI defines white collar crime as illegal acts of deceit, concealment, violation of trust and other con games without the threat of physical harm. These acts can include embezzlement, copyright infringement, fraud, bribery, money laundering, insider trading, identity theft and forgery. According to recent studies greed, fears of loss of economic standing, or severe money issues are the main motives behind these types of crimes. The run of accounting scandals earlier in the century were considered white collar crimes. In fact, the situation became so severe that the Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Auditing and Responsibility Act was passed in 2002 in order to revise the accounting practices of companies. This act was also meant to help prevent executive officers of companies and accounting firms from claiming ignorance of these activities.
Theft/white collar crime in the form of illegal accounting practices harms stock holders and employees while many officers of the corporation manage to come through unscathed. Sarbanes-Oxley intended to reverse this trend by making CEOs and CFOs sign off on annual reports, tax statements and other important documents. They are also responsible for hiring an independent auditor to examine the books for inaccuracies or missing entries. Still there are times where the most diligent manager or business owner cannot account for every illegal act of their employees. If you find that one of your employees have committed an act of fraud, forgery or other illegal accounting attorney, immediately seek the help of an attorney. They will be able to help you minimize the damage to your employees and your company before illegal actions is taken against you.
