Economic crime, fraud, forensic, accounting

Global Economic Crime Survey • November 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers 4 had declined. We also expected that respondents reporting a stable level of financial performance would have reported fewer frauds, but they report the same frequency of incidents as the 62% of respondents reporting a decline. This demonstrates that all organisations, whether or not suffering a decline in financial performance in a downturn, are at risk of economic crime. Hence, we conclude that economic crime remains a pervasive business risk, which does not discriminate among (43% and 42%, respectively) experienced in the past year were greater compared to 12 months ago. Given the 40%-60% split in views as to whether the recession had increased the risk or the incidence of economic crime, we expected that the 38% of organisations reporting no impact of a downturn would have better, that is lower economic crime experience. We found, however, that organisations that had not suffered from an economic downturn reported similar levels of economic crime as compared to those whose businesses Fraud - pervasive, persistent and pernicious One in three respondents reported economic crimes in the last 12 months within their organisations in the country in which they were primarily based. The survey data shows that the incidence of economic crime varies by territory; some countries, mainly those in emerging markets, experienced much higher levels of fraud than the average, as much as 71% in one country (see table under 'the global picture' section); by industry sector, some (notably insurance, financial services and communications) reporting higher levels of fraud than others; by size and type of organisation. But no organisation is immune. Of the 3,037 respondents to our survey globally, 905 (30%) reported having experienced at least one incident of fraud in the last 12 months alone. Not surprisingly, the global economic downturn has significantly affected most organisations, with 62% of respondents having reported a decline in financial performance over the last 12 months and 40% of all respondents saying that the risk of economic crime had risen due to the recession. Indeed, almost half of our respondents believed that the incidences and cost of fraud Economic crime thriving in the downturn,download