Putting the numbers on trial - Business & Economics News ...

?Objection your honour!?

Three words not often heard in the accounting classroom but an innovative method of teaching Business Forensics and Fraud at the Faculty is seeing undergraduate and postgraduate students exposed to the legal practices in a real court room.

Peter Crofts cross examines his first expert witness

Recently over 30 Faculty of Business and Economics students and 15 professional members of the CPA Financial Forensic Investigations Group attended the moot court at Melbourne Law School to view expert witnesses aggressively cross examined in a mock trial. The moot court is a part of the undergraduate Business Forensics and Fraud subject lectured by Professor Colin Ferguson.

?I believe it is unique to teach forensic accounting this way insofar that other forensic programs don?t always focus solely on the accountant being an expert witness? Professor Ferguson said of the program. ?There is an increase in matters to do with fraud appearing in the court and because of this the role of the accountant to gather evidence and pursue fraudsters in the courts has increased enormously?.

The fictional court case involved expert witness?s forensic reports on the valuation of a company being reviewed in the Supreme Court of Victoria before the honourable judge Colin Ferguson. Peter Crofts, barrister-at-law, and Dean Newlan, forensic accountant with McGrathNicol Forensic, appeared as lawyers to interrogate practising forensic accountants Forde Nicolaides of Deloitte and Victor Borg of Victoria Police.

The benefit that this type of teaching gives accounting students is significant as Peter Crofts outlined, ?including a moot court as one of the final experiences of the course serves to put all that has been learned in some context of how an accounting report might be used in a Court and gives some exposure to the skill of acting as an advocate for your report. Giving evidence about a report well, is a skill, and skills are best learned (like throwing a ball) by watching others and trying yourself.

Niko Geisler, an undergraduate student who volunteered for the role play, was also cross examined

Hence the attempt to have students think about how evidence was given and what could be done differently. It has also facilitated research at the cutting edge of this field.?

Principal Forensic Accountant at the TAC and forensic accounting graduate, Stephen Bourchier, says the course thoroughly prepared him to give evidence as an expert witness. ?This year I gave evidence for the first time in the Melbourne Magistrates Court as an expert witness in a committal hearing? he says, ?the fact that I had previously had the experience of being cross examined by Peter in the moot court was something I look back on now as providing me with a level of confidence in giving my evidence in a real court, and dealing with a real cross examination?.

In the last 15 years the demand for forensic accounting has grown and it is not just the large industries or top end of town that are demanding expertise in this area. ?Family law courts, criminal and civil legal cases, and disputes under the Trade Practices Act are relying on competent expertise in this area and placing students into such a courtroom setting allows them to understand the type of microscope that they will go under? explained Professor Ferguson.

Forensic accounting is taught at the undergraduate level in Business Forensics and Fraud ACCT20006 and at the postgraduate level in Forensic Business Practices ACCT90026 by Professor Colin Ferguson and Associate Professor Jennifer Grafton. ?

Source: http://benews.unimelb.edu.au/2012/putting-the-numbers-on-trial/

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