Page 24 - Patisserie Valerie Teaching Note

Chris Marsh

The question that
may be asked is

“who benefited

from the

undeclared and
unreported
overdrafts?”

It is unlikely that this question will be answered until those

arrested come to court. But, on balance, it is unlikely that
one individual could perpetrate this level of fraud and the

thousands of individual actions that underpinned it.

Appendix 10 of the case study shows that “The Chief

Financial Officer supports the Chief Executive Officer and is
responsible for the financial governance of the Company.”

Furthermore,

“The Audit Committee has primary responsibility for monitoring the quality of
internal controls and ensuring that the financial performance of the group is

properly measured and reported on. It receives and reviews reports from the
Company’s management and auditors relating to the interim and annual
accounts and the accounting and internal control systems in use throughout the
group. The Audit Committee meets at least three times a year and has
unrestricted access to the Company’s auditors. The Audit Committee is chaired
by Lee Ginsberg and its other members are James Horler and Luke Johnson.”

The question here is ‘how cozy’ is this relationship between
financial governance and the Audit Committee? In the final