Fraud is a word to strike fear into the hearts of any investor, who tend to take a company’s financial figures at face value. But time after time they find themselves burnt when overly aggressive or even fraudulent accounting leads to calamity.
Enron is the classic case of a seemingly rock-solid corporate titan that was in reality a fragile edifice of dodgy numbers and accounting subterfuge. More recently, Valeant, the Canadian pharma group, has lost nearly $80bn of its value over accounting concerns.
The company recently said that its internal accounting review had found nothing that would force it to restate its earnings, helping its shares regain their footing, but many big-name investors are still nursing huge losses.
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