Hemming Morse Partners Dan Ray, Paul Regan, and Christian Tregillis each presented sessions at the California Society of Certified Public Accountants’ 2021 4N6: Forensics and Fraud Virtual Conference. This year’s all-virtual conference provided an opportunity for professionals to gather timely updates and cutting-edge information on new technology and to network with one another.

Dan led the session, “What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You.” A case study of a large internal fraud investigation commenced upon receipt of an anonymous complaint indicating that senior management of the company was inappropriately involved with a number of vendors and asking that accountants look into how much money had been paid to these undisclosed related parties.

Paul led the session, “Fraudulent Financial Reporting and Accountant’s Malpractice.” He spoke about multiple high-profile, billion-dollar frauds of the last 30 years. The presentation described how the frauds were perpetrated, the accounting misstatements that resulted, and the environment that enabled the frauds to take place.

Christian led the session “The Alter-Ego Investigation.”  The session covered many aspects of alter-ego investigations, including:

• What is the alter-ego doctrine?
• Alter-ego elements and indicia
• Analyses helpful in an alter-ego context
• Presentation of alter-ego analyses and opinions

Hemming Morse professionals have a long history of active leadership and participation in industry organizations such as CalCPA, guiding continued learning and best practices for those in the forensic accounting field.