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Internal Controls: Cure-all or Snake Oil?

By Ira H. Raphaelson and Jim Walden
April 01, 2004

“Internal controls” have been touted for years as the cure-all for corporate ills. Why, then, are we bombarded with daily revelations of abuses crippling corporations around the globe?

Calls for internal control systems can be found in literature dating back almost half a century. In 1958, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) took the first shot at defining a system to ensure corporate control over transactions, assets, and operations. Among other things, AICPA recommended the development of procedures to safeguard assets from pillaging and misuse and to maintain complete and accurate financial records.

It took almost 20 years for the concept to find legislative acceptance in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), passed by Congress in another era of corporate scandals– one involving bribery by U.S. businesses, some of which maintained huge off-shore slush funds to grease the palms of foreign officials and U.S. politicians.

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