You have been hired by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a fraud prevention and detection expert. The position you were hired for is to provide training to SEC employees on lessons learned from financial statement fraud. Research at least two major fraud cases that were a result of financial statement fraud and respond to the following:
1. Assess the culture of the organizations that you researched, analyzing the corporate culture or "tone at the top".
2. Assess the causes of the financial statement fraud(s) and the effectiveness of fraud prevention and detection at those companies based on the research you conducted. Provide support for your assessment.
3. Propose what could / should have been implemented in those companies that would have prevented or detected the fraud, indicating who should have been responsible for the implementation. Provide support for your proposal.
4. Explore the roles and responsibilities at these companies and assess if that contributed to the fraud, indicating how these roles should be changed to prevent future fraudulent activity. Provide support for your rationale.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of SEC regulation and requirements, indicating improvements needed to detect fraud in the future. Provide support for your recommendations.