McKenna At Georgia Southern University’s 5th Annual Fraud and Forensic Accounting Conference

I spoke  at the Fifth Annual Fraud and Forensic Accounting Education Conference on June 2, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Riverfront in Savannah, Georgia. This conference is hosted by Georgia Southern University’s Center for Forensic Studies in Accounting and Business and sponsored by Porter Keadle Moore, LLP.

My presentation, “The Skeptical Professional: Requirements and Case Studies,” was given on Thursday morning and I had a full house.  There were great questions and several people followed up with me later in the conference with feedback.

A link to the presentation is here.

I was quite surprised that, given an audience of practitioners and academics, more weren’t familiar with the Satyam scandal and the Chinese reverse merger frauds controversy. It just goes to show you that the media, and academia, do not cover international nearly enough and that there’s an ongoing need for my writing on those subjects.

I had a chance to talk at length with Chris Bowler, a Senior Manager in the Porter Keadle Moore (the sponsor) Systems Assurance practice. He told me about their big push to educate current and prospective clients about SSAE 16 and Service Organization Controls reports, the replacement for SAS 70s as of June 15, 2011. We agreed it’s surprising how many companies don’t know they need to provide or expect something different now.

I also spent some time with Henry Sewell, an attorney with McKenna, Long & Aldridge. His presentation, “The Expanding Use of Examiners in Bankruptcy Cases,” was in my sweet spot. I’ve written extensively about the examiners that have highlighted the auditors’ role in the failures – Missal (New Century), Hochberg (Refco), and Valukas (Lehman). Joshua Hochberg is a colleague of Sewell’s at McKenna Long and I asked Sewell to send him my regards.

Another interesting presentation was given by Ken Yormark of Navigant. He spoke about the UK Bribery Act and compared and contrasted it with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yormark has a great chart in his presentation, here.

Finally, serendipity played a role in my meeting Ernie Almonte. Almonte, a former Auditor General for Rhode Island, immediate past Chairman of the AICPA, and member of the Audit Advisory Committee for the US Department of Defense, gave a keynote speech. He stayed around at the conference until Saturday, but I did not meet him until I saw him, sitting alone at the airport, waiting for the same flight as I was to Charlotte.

Almonte is an auditor’s auditor. He has many things to look forward to in his career – he’ll either be running for Governor of Rhodel Island or end up an Inspector General for a federal agency – but he’s an all around regular guy, easygoing, and full of stories.

I’ve got my eye on him!

If you’d like to see the rest of the presentations from the Georgia Southern Fraud and Forensic Accounting Conference, visit the conference site where they are all linked.