All articles tagged with #financial controls
WH Smith is under investigation by the UK's FCA after uncovering accounting mistakes in its North American business, leading to a delayed annual report, executive resignations, and a significant drop in share price, with the company planning to overhaul its stores by 2026 to restore confidence and improve governance.
Internal communications from now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX reveal that leadership had difficulty understanding their own positions and recordkeeping, making it nearly impossible to comply with normal financial controls. FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried saw this as a sign of success, describing Alameda, the company's recordkeeping system, as "hilariously beyond any threshold of any auditor being able to even get partially through an audit." However, the lack of proper recordkeeping ultimately led to FTX's downfall.
Debtors of FTX, the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, released a report alleging a lack of controls in management, governance, and accounting, as well as a lack of digital asset management, information security, and cybersecurity controls. The report also claimed that a small group of individuals "stifled dissent" and "misused corporate and customer funds." FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2021 after a week of a liquidity crisis, and its implosion was attributed to "hubris, incompetence, and greed."