Easy prey investors : why broken safety nets threaten your wealth
2019
Book
"Over the past twenty-five years, a series of actions, omissions and failures by Canada's lawmakers and the purported gatekeepers of investor 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 less credible and unreliable. Yet these distorted financial statements are 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 on the reliability of audited statements-- that have led to the proliferation of Ponzi schemes 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 financial trickery 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 savers as well as how most conventional protections have been stripped away from investors. Why save in Canada when money can so easily be stolen? 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."-- Provided by publisher.
Item Details
ISBN:
- 9780773559417
- 9780773548190
Description: xiv, 383 pages ; 23 cm
Notes:
- Originally published in hardcover: Montreal & Kingston : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.
- Canadiana.
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-376) and index.
Contents:
- 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.
Control Number: 2871161
Publisher: Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2019]