In a new report from the Deloitte Forensic Center entitled, “Ten Things about Financial Statement Fraud - Third Edition,” the firm reviewed more than 1,700 SEC administrative enforcement actions issued between January 2000 through December 2008 through the agency’s Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs). After excluding all releases related to insider trading, actions against vendors, or auditors, 430 AAERs relating to 392 companies remained for Deloitte’s review.  Some of the report’s most interesting findings are as follows:

• The number of AAER’s spiked from 35 in 2000 to 75 in 2003 (following the Enron and WorldCom collapses), but has stayed in a narrow range between 45 and 54 from 2004-2008.
• The time it takes the SEC to bring a case, i.e., the amount of time between the start date of each alleged fraud scheme and the issuance date of the AAER, has risen dramaticaly since 2004. It has steadily grown each year since 2004, from 4.3 years to 7 years.
• 44% of the individuals named in the SEC’s financial statement fraud enforcement releases in 2008 had the role of CFO, chief accounting officer (CAO), or controller. CEOs accounted for 24%, and directors and general counsel both accounted for 4%.
• The two most common alleged revenue recognition schemes identified in the 2008 AAERs were (1) recognition of fictitious revenue and (2) recognition of revenue when products or services were not delivered, delivery was incomplete, or items were delivered without customer acceptance.

Toby Bishop, the director of the Deloitte Forensic Center, told me that he found two of the findings particularly interesting. First, with respect to the percentage breakdown of the titles of the subjects named in the 2008 AAERs discussed above, Bishop observed that nearly one-third of these individuals were not CEOs or financial executives. He stated that “this indicates a willingness of the SEC to pursue charges against parties allegedly involved in financial statement fraud - other than the traditional targets of CEOs and financial executives.”

Second, between 2000 and 2008, 38% of the SEC’s AAERs indentified alleged fraud schemes related to revenue recognition fraud, making this the most commonly alleged type of scheme. Bishop noted that for 2008 alone, however, just 30% of the enforcement releases were related to revenue recognition, down from 33% in 2007. He stated that if alleged revenue recognition frauds continue to decline, they could soon be at a level similar to that of other alleged financial statement fraud schemes, rather than being several times more common as has been the case during most of this decade. Bishop said that this may have implications for corporate fraud risk assessments and regulatory policy.