Easy prey investors : why broken safety nets threaten your wealth / Al Rosen and Mark Rosen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rosen, Al, 1935- author.

Rosen, Mark, 1973- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Commercial crimes--Canada.

Commercial crimes.

Fraud--Canada.

Fraud.

Corporations--Corrupt practices--Canada.

Corporations.

International financial reporting standards.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (399 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal, [Canada] : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Over the past twenty-five years, a series of actions, omissions, and failures by Canada's lawmakers and the purported gatekeepers of investors' rights have left Canadians' investments, pensions, and retirement savings at greater risk. Bodies such as provincial securities commissions have abandoned their obligations to safeguard investors and allowed published and audited financial statements in Canada to become unreliable. Yet these distorted financial statements are often used by financial analysts who present them as accurate, leaving investors in the dark about serious risks and negative impacts on their savings. In Easy Prey Investors, investigative forensic accountants Al and Mark Rosen examine the circumstances – beginning with a 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that largely granted external auditors immunity against shareholder lawsuits – that have led to a proliferation of corporate scandals and other financial manipulations, and a corresponding lack of accountability among auditors. Based on their many years of experience in major Canadian court cases involving collapsed companies, the authors reveal the full stories behind the financial deceptions, and describe the disturbing consequences for investors. They show how a combination of inaction by lawmakers and illogical delegation of regulatory power to conflicted financial statement auditors has seriously harmed investors, as well as how most conventional protections have been stripped away from stakeholders. Why invest in Canada when your money can so easily be lost? Prying open doors too often sealed shut, Easy Prey Investors illuminates the unpleasant details of financial manipulation and suggests new ways to guide and protect investors and their families.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Unacceptable State of Affairs

Ponzi Schemes

Sino-Forest: Why Us?

The Hercules Managements Case

Evolution of Canadian Financial Trickery

The Basics of Scam Detection

Interest Rate Manipulation

Yield Scams

Cash Flow Games

Nortel and Its Clones

Related Party Nastiness

The Saga of Castor Holdings

Revenue Trickery

Time for a Pause

Conning Financial Analysts

Potentially Troublesome Scenarios

Unproductive Audits?

The Livent Inc. Case

IPO Traps

Watch for the Usual Suspects

Canada’s Slippery Slopes

The Party Line

IFRS in a Nutshell

Conceptual Flaws of IFRS

Deficient IFRS

REITs and Cash Flow: More Misleading IFRS

IFRS and Extractive Industries

IFRS Financial Analysis

IFRS Analysis in Action

Typical IFRS Traps

Perpetual Ponzi Corporation

IFRS vs. Old GAAP

Government Neglect

Appendices

Financial Statements Explained

Hercules Immunizes Canada’s Financial Statement Auditors

Stock Market Rides

Mainstreet Equity Corp. Illustration

Additional Reading / Viewing

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 3, 2017).

ISBN:

9780773599901

0773599908

9780773599918

0773599916