In North American, senior managers were behind nearly a quarter of the cases
Despite or because of the global spread of corporate governance codes, reports of financial fraud rose 22 percentage points in the last two years, reported Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
The audit firm polled corporate officers in 34 countries, and found that 45 percent reported fraud detections, up from 37 percent in 2003. The average incident cost $1.7 million.
But internal audits found the fraud only 26 percent of the time. Chance accounted for more than a third of the detections.
In North America, 60 percent of the perpetrators were employees of the victim firm, and almost a quarter were senior managers.
Source: IT Compliance Institute
