经济学人下载:家贼难防

Business
商业报道

Schumpeter
熊彼得

The enemy within
家贼难防

Fraud within companies is a risk that can never be eliminated, just managed
企业内部的欺诈行为是一种无法杜绝的风险，只能控制

BUSINESS has always been plagued by fraud:
商业企业一直遭受着欺诈者的侵扰：

witness the South Sea Company in the 1710s or Charles Ponzi's Securities Exchange Company in 1920 or the Enron and WorldCom scandals in the early 2000s.
比如南海公司在1710年代的所作所为把英国经济卷入了巨大的泡沫，1920年代Charles Ponzi的股票交易公司更是为世界贡献了庞氏骗局这一新名词，当然不得不提还有2000年代安然和世通两家公司丑闻。

Ambitious fraudsters are attracted to businesses for the same reason that Willie Sutton, a contemporary of Ponzi, reportedly said he robbed banks: Because that's where the money is.
企业对于野心勃勃骗子来说是很有吸引力的，其原因同当Willie Sutton*被问到为何抢银行时说的理由相同：因为钱在那啊。

Some frauds are committed by people at the top such as Bernard Madoff or Allen Stanford.
一些欺诈案是由Bernard Madoff或Allen Stanford这样的组织高层人员犯下的，

Others are committed by hired-hands lower down the organisation.
另一些则是由组织下层的雇员犯下的。

But all frauds involve abusing people's trust and diverting corporate resources for personal ends.
但是所有的诈骗行为都包括对他人信任的滥用及以个人为目的的对企业资源的转移。

Fraud by wayward employees, be they high or low, can never be eliminated.
由难以捉摸的员工—无论是高层还是基层—所进行的欺诈是无法被杜绝的，

Directors and executives can, however, treat it like any other unavoidable risk, and manage it professionally.
公司的董事和高管要想像对待其他无法规避的风险一样对待欺诈，并对其进行专业的控制。

The risk is particularly acute at the moment.
在这样一个时代这种风险尤为突出。

Companies are straining the bonds of loyalty.
在这个企业对个人信任被透支的额的时代里，

They are making ever more use of contractors and temporary workers.
企业对承包商和临时工的大量使用是前无仅有的。

They are putting more pressure on employees to hit targets; they are also holding down the wages of the majority of workers while increasing the boss's pay.
企业为完成目标对员工施加了更大了压力；他们降低了大部分员工的工资，老板的收入却得到了提高。

This is all happening at a time when economic activity is shifting to the emerging world and to the internet.
这同样也是经济活动向新兴经济体和互联网转移的时代。

Kroll, a security consultant, found that 70% of the companies that it studied were affected by fraud in 2013, up from 61% in the previous year.
一名名为Kroll的安全顾问对%些公司进行的了调研，发现在2013年其中70%的公司收到了欺诈行为的影响，去年的数据则为61%。

At the same time the punishment is harsher than ever.
而与此同时，对欺诈的惩罚也变得比从前更为严厉了。

Companies nowadays run the risk of being held liable for their employees' misbehaviour unless they can show they had done their best to prevent it.
如今，企业要为其员工的不当行为负责，除非他能证明自身已为防范此行为的发生做了最充分的工作；

Directors who play even the smallest role in frauds can now go to prison.
被发现与欺诈有任何的瓜葛的董事会成员都会面临牢狱之灾。

America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its European imitators have made a serious crime of something once seen as normal business practice: bribing foreigners.
贿赂外国人，这一曾经被看作日常商业行为的活动，如今也已被美国的《反外国腐败行为法案》及英国的仿造品定为严重的罪行。

Companies infected by fraud can incur all sorts of other costs.
与欺诈行为有关系的公司还会招致其他各种各样的损失：

Their licences to trade may be withdrawn, they may be barred from bidding for government work and they may be subjected to online campaigns urging customers to boycott them.
贸易执照被吊销，被禁止参加政府招标的项目，还有可能遭到力劝消费者抵制其产品的在线运动。

What can companies do to uncover internal scams?
企业怎样做才能发觉其内部的阴谋呢？

A new book, Corporate Fraud: the Human Factor, by Maryam Hussain, an investigator at EY, an accounting firm, provides a timely guide.
安永会计事务所的一名调查员Maryam Hussain所写的一本新书，《企业欺诈：人的因素》为他们提供了适时的指导。

One answer is to look for the telltale signs.
其中一点就是要去寻找那些能暴露问题的征兆。

Some of the biggest corporate tricksters were people whose flamboyant personalities often raised suspicions: think of Robert Maxwell, or Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, perhaps the best novel about corporate fraud.
一些大名鼎鼎的企业诈骗者，通常也会具备一些令人生疑的浮夸性格：想想Robert Maxwell吧，或是看一下Anthony Trollope的《我们现在生活的方式》，它可能是最好的企业欺诈题材的小说。

Boards have a duty to pluck up the courage to challenge such larger-than-life bosses.
董事会有责任鼓起勇气，对这些具有传奇色彩的管理层人员提出怀疑。

However, most corporate fraudsters do not have swishing reptilian tails as a giveaway sign.
然而，大部分的行骗者并没长着沙沙作响的尾巴作为暴露自己的标志。

In many instances they are not borderline psychopaths, just ordinary people gone wrong.
在多数情况下，他们并不是边缘型精神病，而都只是些误入歧途的普通人。

Frequently, they start with small crimes and then engage in ever bigger misdemeanours to conceal their wrongdoing.
通常在起初，他们只是犯下了小错误，然后却用更大的不当行为来掩盖之前的错误。

Nick Leeson, who destroyed Barings Bank by losing 862m in bad bets on derivatives, said, It all started when I tried to cover for a junior colleague who had lost 20,000.
为巴林银行造成8.62亿英镑的金融衍生品坏账，最终致其倒闭Nick Leeson曾经说：一切都开始于我试图包庇一位造成两万英镑损失的年轻同事。

Ramalinga Raju, the chairman of Satyam, who admitted to inflating the computer-services company's revenues by 1 billion, said, It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.
软件服务公司萨蒂扬的董事长Ramalinga Raju说：我就像骑在老虎身上，不知如何下来才不会被吃掉。此人承认自己把公司的利润夸大了数以10亿计。

A second answer is to put procedures in place to detect frauds.
第二点则是要落实监测欺诈的程序和手续。

The Sarbanes-Oxley law passed in America after the Enron and WorldCom frauds requires the boards of public companies to commission independent audits of their internal financial controls.
在安然和世通的丑闻后美国通过了《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》，要求上市公司的董事会委任独立审计进行内部财务控制。

But rigorous procedures can easily lure companies into a false sense of security.
但是，严格的手续会引诱企业产生一种安全的错觉。

The employees most affected by those rules may be precisely the ones most capable of finding ways around them, as was the case with Mr Leeson and Jerme Kerviel, a renegade trader at Societe Generale.
那些受严格规定影响最大的员工也恰恰会是最有能力钻空子的人， Slesson先生以及ociete Generale公司变节的交易员Jer?me Kerviel都是这样的例子。

Many companies seek reassurance that all is well by installing cyber-security tools to monitor employees' e-mails and internal accounting systems for suspicious activity.
许多公司为寻求保障，会通过安装网络安全工具来监控员工的邮件和内部会计系统，以发觉可疑活动。

But fraudsters are often quicker at harnessing technology to disguise what they are up to than companies are at using it to spot them.
企业利用科技来搜寻行骗者，后者也同样使用科技来掩饰他们的意图，而且总要技高一筹。

Those running scams may also be skilled at tricking colleagues into giving them passwords—a technique Edward Snowden may have exploited to devastating effect.
那些行骗者同样很擅长从他们的同事那里骗取密码—一个像Edward Snowden那样的技术人员就可以对公司造成毁灭性的影响。

Praising the bearers of bad news
赞美告密者

The most powerful weapon against fraud is not an algorithm or a checklist but a whistleblower.
对抗欺诈最有力的武器并不是计算程序或是核对清单，而是告密者。

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners calculates that three times as many frauds are discovered by tip-offs than by any other method.
注册舞弊检查师协会的检查人员计算出：通过密报发现的欺诈案例是通过其他方法发现的3倍。

It also notes that firms with fraud hotlines, which staff can call anonymously, suffer smaller losses from fraud, and cut by seven months the exposure gap between the start of an illicit scheme and its discovery.
协会还支出，那些设有员工可以匿名拨打的翻欺诈热线的企业通常因欺诈产生的损失也相对较小，而且也减短了那些非法阴谋从开始到被发现之间的长达七个月的潜伏期。

Governments are increasingly providing whistleblowers with legal protection and financial incentives:
政府也在不断增加对告密者提供的法律保护和经济奖励：

America's Securities and Exchange Commission has created a 450m fund to reward them.
美国证券交易委员会已经为奖励他们创立了4.5亿美元的基金。

Companies that dither, blather or launch half-hearted inquiries when presented with evidence of employee misconduct often end up regretting it.
在面对自己员工不当行为的证据时，那些表现得犹豫不决、暧昧不明或是不配合调查的公司通常在最后都会后悔。

JPMorgan Chase lost billions in its London Whale rogue-trader scandal, initially dismissed by the bank's boss, Jamie Dimon, as a tempest in a teapot.
摩根大通公司在其绰号伦敦鲸的无赖交易员造成丑闻中损失惨重；而该公司老板Jamie Dimon起先对此事不予理睬，最终造成了这次的茶壶中的风暴。

Besides doing more to encourage whistleblowers, businesses must take decisive action to close the exposure gap.
除了要鼓励员工告密之外，企业还得采取决定性的行动来减短欺诈事件曝光的时间。

A botched investigation can tip off a fraudster and make it easy for him to cover his tracks.
鲁莽的调查行动会打草惊蛇，让行骗者更容易掩盖自己的行迹。

A suspicion of deliberate foot-dragging can render an entire company vulnerable.
但如果企业表现出故意拖延调查的嫌疑，又会使整个企业处于不利的地位。

The damage done by corporate fraud can last long after the culprits have been identified.
即使在欺诈犯被发现后，其对企业的伤害依旧会持续。