Case 2
Jamaica Water Properties
Table of Contents

Issues………………………………………………………………………………..... 1
Facts………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….... 11
Conclusion/Recommendations………………………………………………………. 17
Reference/Bibliography…………………………………………………………….... 19

Issue
1. After discovering the suspicious items in JWP’s accounting records, should he have taken a different course of action than he did?
2. What measures can and should be taken to make it easier for corporate employees to ‘‘blow the whistle’’ on a fraudulent scheme they uncovered within the firm?
3. Should business, accounting firms, and other organizations explicitly reward ethical behavior by their employees and executives?
4. What measures can
Despite Dwyer’s lofty plans for his new division, he realized that it only worsened a problem that JWP had been battling over the previous few years. The company’s rapid growth during the 1980s had resulted in a far-flung and unwieldy organization that was difficult to manage and weighted down by disproportionately high administrative expenses. To remedy this problem, Andrew Dwyer went in search of an individual with a proven track record of managing companies facing difficult circumstances. In a matter of weeks, Dwyer identified David Sokol as the top candidate for JWP’s COO position.
David Sokol accepted Andrew Dwyer’s offer to become JWP’s COO in January 1992 because he enjoyed tackling challenging assignments. But Sokol was unaware of the biggest challenge he would face at JWP Over the previous several years, the company’s financial data had been embellished by a pervasive accounting fraud. The abusive accounting practices included misapplying the purchase method of accounting for acquisitions, recording fictitious assets, improper accounting for net operating loss (NOL) canyforwards, failing to record appropriate allowances for uncollectible receivables, and misapplying the percentage-of-completion method of accounting for long-term contracts. Collectively, these accounting abuses had a significant impact on JWP’s reported profits.