The auditor for MiniScribe wasCoopers & Lybrand.
Coopers & Lybrand did not discover the fraud at MiniScribe. The fraud was discovered by the company's new management team after former CEO Q.T. Wiles resigned in February 1989. The new management team conducted an internal investigation and released a report in September 1989 that concluded that senior managers at MiniScribe had perpetrated a "massive fraud" on the company, its directors, its outside auditors, and the investing public.
Coopers & Lybrand denied any wrongdoing in connection with the fraud at MiniScribe. The firm said that it had conducted its audits in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and that it had not been aware of the fraud at the time of its audits.
However, Coopers & Lybrand was eventually sued by investors in MiniScribe who alleged that the firm had failed to detect the fraud. In 1991, Coopers & Lybrand agreed to pay $95 million to settle the lawsuits.
The fraud at MiniScribe was one of the largest accounting scandals of the 1980s. It led to a number of changes in the accounting industry, including the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
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Coopers & Lybrand is no longer in business. In 1998, Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse to form PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). PwC is one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, along with Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
The merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse was one of a number of mergers that took place in the accounting industry in the late 1990s. These mergers were driven by a number of factors, including the need to compete with global consulting firms and the desire to offer a wider range of services to clients.
PwC is one of the largest professional services networks in the world, with over 328,000 people in 152 countries. The firm provides audit, assurance, tax, consulting, and other professional services to clients in a wide range of industries.
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I have learned that you can not always trust the auditors, investors learned the hard way w/ Miniscribe |
