Fraud and COSO 2013

When the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) 2013 Internal Control – Integrated Framework was released, a specific principle was outlined related to fraud. Principle Eight under the risk assessment component indicates:

The organization considers the potential for fraud in assessing risks to the achievement of objectives.

This principle is directly focused on “the organization” and not just the auditors. This principle is an extension of Principle Seven.   Principle Seven assumes identification of risks to achievement of objectives in context of stakeholders acting ethically and within standards of conduct.  Principle Eight requires identification of opportunities, pressures, incentives, and rationalizations that may lead to actions outside the bounds of such ethical conduct and standards of behavior.

This course delves further into the expectations of COSO Principle Eight.  We discuss and evaluate the COSO anti-fraud guide released in September 2016 and evaluate how the Fraud principles relate to the COSO 2013 principles.  We also examine actions that organizations, management, and employees should be aware of in relationship to fraud.

Citations of information on the COSO framework, principles and points of focus mentioned through this course are directly worded from the COSO literature and relayed here with the permission of COSO.org as a training mechanism related to their framework. The full document of the Framework can be found at COSO.org.

Note: Information within this course comes from readily available public domain documents and is utilized by the trainer as a supplement for relaying the course content.