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Business
商業報道
Schumpeter
熊彼得
The enemy within
家賊難防
Fraud within companies is a risk that can never be eliminated, just managed
企業內部的欺詐行為是一種無法杜絕的風險，只能控制
BUSINESS has always been plagued by fraud:
商業企業一直遭受著欺詐者的侵擾：
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年代的所作所為把英國經濟卷入了巨大的泡沫，1920年代Charles Ponzi的股票交易公司更是為世界貢獻了龐氏騙局這一新名詞，當然不得不提還有2000年代安然和世通兩家公司丑聞。
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.
企業對于野心勃勃騙子來說是很有吸引力的，其原因同當Willie Sutton*被問到為何搶銀行時說的理由相同：因為錢在那啊。
Some frauds are committed by people at the top such as Bernard Madoff or Allen Stanford.
一些欺詐案是由Bernard Madoff或Allen Stanford這樣的組織高層人員犯下的，
Others are committed by hired-hands lower down the organisation.
另一些則是由組織下層的雇員犯下的。
But all frauds involve abusing people's trust and diverting corporate resources for personal ends.
但是所有的詐騙行為都包括對他人信任的濫用及以個人為目的的對企業資源的轉移。
Fraud by wayward employees, be they high or low, can never be eliminated.
由難以捉摸的員工—無論是高層還是基層—所進行的欺詐是無法被杜絕的，
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對待其他無法規避的風險一樣對待欺詐，并對其進行專業的控制。
The risk is particularly acute at the moment.
在這樣一個時代這種風險尤為突出。
Companies are straining the bonds of loyalty.
在這個企業對個人信任被透支的額的時代里，
They are making ever more use of contractors and temporary workers.
企業對承包商和臨時工的大量使用是前無僅有的。
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.
企業為完成目標對員工施加了更大了壓力；他們降低了大部分員工的工資，老板的收入卻得到了提高。
This is all happening at a time when economic activity is shifting to the emerging world and to the internet.
這同樣也是經濟活動向新興經濟體和互聯網轉移的時代。
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.
一名名為Kroll的安全顧問對%些公司進行的了調研，發現在2013年其中70%的公司收到了欺詐行為的影響，去年的數據則為61%。
At the same time the punishment is harsher than ever.
而與此同時，對欺詐的懲罰也變得比從前更為嚴厲了。
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，企業要為其員工的不當行為負責，除非他能證明自身已為防范此行為的發生做了最充分的工作；
Directors who play even the smallest role in frauds can now go to prison.
被發現與欺詐有任何的瓜葛的董事會成員都會面臨牢獄之災。
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.
賄賂外國人，這一曾經被看作日常商業行為的活動，如今也已被美國的《反外國腐敗行為法案》及英國的仿造品定為嚴重的罪行。
Companies infected by fraud can incur all sorts of other costs.
與欺詐行為有關系的公司還會招致其他各種各樣的損失：
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.
貿易執照被吊銷，被禁止參加政府招標的項目，還有可能遭到力勸消費者抵制其產品的在線運動。
What can companies do to uncover internal scams?
企業怎樣做才能發覺其內部的陰謀呢？
A new book, Corporate Fraud: the Human Factor, by Maryam Hussain, an investigator at EY, an accounting firm, provides a timely guide.
安永會計事務所的一名調查員Maryam Hussain所寫的一本新書，《企業欺詐：人的因素》為他們提供了適時的指導。
One answer is to look for the telltale signs.
其中一點就是要去尋找那些能暴露問題的征兆。
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.
一些大名鼎鼎的企業詐騙者，通常也會具備一些令人生疑的浮夸性格：想想Robert Maxwell吧，或是看一下Anthony Trollope的《我們現在生活的方式》，它可能是最好的企業欺詐題材的小說。
Boards have a duty to pluck up the courage to challenge such larger-than-life bosses.
董事會有責任鼓起勇氣，對這些具有傳奇色彩的管理層人員提出懷疑。
However, most corporate fraudsters do not have swishing reptilian tails as a giveaway sign.
然而，大部分的行騙者并沒長著沙沙作響的尾巴作為暴露自己的標志。
In many instances they are not borderline psychopaths, just ordinary people gone wrong.
在多數情況下，他們并不是邊緣型精神病，而都只是些誤入歧途的普通人。
Frequently, they start with small crimes and then engage in ever bigger misdemeanours to conceal their wrongdoing.
通常在起初，他們只是犯下了小錯誤，然后卻用更大的不當行為來掩蓋之前的錯誤。
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.
為巴林銀行造成8.62億英鎊的金融衍生品壞賬，最終致其倒閉Nick Leeson曾經說：一切都開始于我試圖包庇一位造成兩萬英鎊損失的年輕同事。
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.
軟件服務公司薩蒂揚的董事長Ramalinga Raju說：我就像騎在老虎身上，不知如何下來才不會被吃掉。此人承認自己把公司的利潤夸大了數以10億計。
A second answer is to put procedures in place to detect frauds.
第二點則是要落實監測欺詐的程序和手續。
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.
在安然和世通的丑聞后美國通過了《薩班斯-奧克斯利法案》，要求上市公司的董事會委任獨立審計進行內部財務控制。
But rigorous procedures can easily lure companies into a false sense of security.
但是，嚴格的手續會引誘企業產生一種安全的錯覺。
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.
那些受嚴格規定影響最大的員工也恰恰會是最有能力鉆空子的人， Slesson先生以及ociete Generale公司變節的交易員Jer?me Kerviel都是這樣的例子。
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.
許多公司為尋求保障，會通過安裝網絡安全工具來監控員工的郵件和內部會計系統，以發覺可疑活動。
But fraudsters are often quicker at harnessing technology to disguise what they are up to than companies are at using it to spot them.
企業利用科技來搜尋行騙者，后者也同樣使用科技來掩飾他們的意圖，而且總要技高一籌。
Those running scams may also be skilled at tricking colleagues into giving them passwords—a technique Edward Snowden may have exploited to devastating effect.
那些行騙者同樣很擅長從他們的同事那里騙取密碼—一個像Edward Snowden那樣的技術人員就可以對公司造成毀滅性的影響。
Praising the bearers of bad news
贊美告密者
The most powerful weapon against fraud is not an algorithm or a checklist but a whistleblower.
對抗欺詐最有力的武器并不是計算程序或是核對清單，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.
注冊舞弊檢查師協會的檢查人員計算出：通過密報發現的欺詐案例是通過其他方法發現的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.
協會還支出，那些設有員工可以匿名撥打的翻欺詐熱線的企業通常因欺詐產生的損失也相對較小，而且也減短了那些非法陰謀從開始到被發現之間的長達七個月的潛伏期。
Governments are increasingly providing whistleblowers with legal protection and financial incentives:
政府也在不斷增加對告密者提供的法律保護和經濟獎勵：
America's Securities and Exchange Commission has created a 450m fund to reward them.
美國證券交易委員會已經為獎勵他們創立了4.5億美元的基金。
Companies that dither, blather or launch half-hearted inquiries when presented with evidence of employee misconduct often end up regretting it.
在面對自己員工不當行為的證據時，那些表現得猶豫不決、曖昧不明或是不配合調查的公司通常在最后都會后悔。
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.
摩根大通公司在其綽號倫敦鯨的無賴交易員造成丑聞中損失慘重；而該公司老板Jamie Dimon起先對此事不予理睬，最終造成了這次的茶壺中的風暴。
Besides doing more to encourage whistleblowers, businesses must take decisive action to close the exposure gap.
除了要鼓勵員工告密之外，企業還得采取決定性的行動來減短欺詐事件曝光的時間。
A botched investigation can tip off a fraudster and make it easy for him to cover his tracks.
魯莽的調查行動會打草驚蛇，讓行騙者更容易掩蓋自己的行跡。
A suspicion of deliberate foot-dragging can render an entire company vulnerable.
但如果企業表現出故意拖延調查的嫌疑，又會使整個企業處于不利的地位。
The damage done by corporate fraud can last long after the culprits have been identified.
即使在欺詐犯被發現后，其對企業的傷害依舊會持續。
