Hi, I know what I'm bound by and have everything in place when I started working for my client, but recently they have been subjected to theft and fraud. The Md has told me that's its none of my business and it's totally her responsibility. What do I do, say to her please as I've already stated that I have a duty of care. !
I am reading this that the issue is an internal one rather than external theft / fraud?
I think that you may be overthinking the duty of care in that such requires you to act with professional competence and due care in your work and that work may feed into quantification of the loss but if a fraud has occured the owner of the business may have decided to have a forensic audit performed and any help that you attempted to give quite innocently might inadvertantly cover evidence requied by the forensic investigators.
If an audit is to be performed it will be concerned with determining whether a fraud actually occured, how long the fraud has been going on for, is it still occuring, who was involved, was there collusion amongst staff or with management, quantification of loss, how to stop it happening again, etc.
Forensic audits can be quite daunting affairs with interviews (forensic interviewers are trained in interrogation techniques) as well as reviews of documentation, processes and procedures by specialists in that field. At all stages the forensic accountant will be doing their utmost to ensure that any evidence gathered cannot be open to corruption.
Whether an external forensic audit is to be performed or not (usually dependant upon the level of the fraud) the statement by your MD is quite understandable in that they will want to ensure that they are able to investigate everything either themselves or with external independant help as fraud is seldom as simple as it at first seems.
Considering the above I would not be offended at the MD's stance or take the rebuke personally Andrina but simply go along with matters providing whatever evidence is required throughout the investigation.
kindest regards,
Shaun.
p.s. if the issue is an external rather than internal one, again if the MD states that they can handle it then there is little that you can do to help besides have all of the correct relevant information to hand when it is required.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
