Easy Prey Investors

Book excerpt: Over the past twenty-five years, a series of actions, omissions, and failures by Canada's lawmakers and the purported gatekeepers of investors' rights have left Canadians' investments, pensions, and retirement savings at greater risk. Bodies such as provincial securities commissions have abandoned their obligations to safeguard investors and allowed published and audited financial statements in Canada to become unreliable. Yet these distorted financial statements are often used by financial analysts who present them as accurate, leaving investors in the dark about serious risks and negative impacts on their savings. In Easy Prey Investors, investigative forensic accountants Al and Mark Rosen examine the circumstances – beginning with a 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that largely granted external auditors immunity against shareholder lawsuits – that have led to a proliferation of corporate scandals and other financial manipulations, and a corresponding lack of accountability among auditors. Based on their many years of experience in major Canadian court cases involving collapsed companies, the authors reveal the full stories behind the financial deceptions, and describe the disturbing consequences for investors. They show how a combination of inaction by lawmakers and illogical delegation of regulatory power to conflicted financial statement auditors has seriously harmed investors, as well as how most conventional protections have been stripped away from stakeholders. Why invest in Canada when your money can so easily be lost? Prying open doors too often sealed shut, Easy Prey Investors illuminates the unpleasant details of financial manipulation and suggests new ways to guide and protect investors and their families.