Methodological principles of economic crime prevention within trade enterprises’ internal audit system

Abstract

The purpose of the article is the substantiation of organizational and methodological principles of economic crimes preventing within internal audit system of a trade enterprise. Methodology. Methodological and informational basis for the research became scientific works, periodic materials, Internet resources, Ukrainian legislation, Basel Committee recommendations and internal audit international standards. Results. It is proved that the effective internal audit system is the key factor for successful corporate governance implementation, one of the most important aspects of which is related to financial supervision. It is determined that the most common type of economic crimes for trade enterprises is the appropriation of property by stealing goods. The economic crimes that arise in the activity of trading enterprises are systematized by the following groups: financial (illegal appropriation of property, tax evasion, insider trading); mixed (falsification of documents, bribery and corruption, kickbacks); official (intellectual property rights violation, corporate espionage, unethical corporate behavior). It is proved that necessary condition of owners’ rights protection is appropriate accumulation of reliable information concerning the use of property in economic activity of a commercial enterprise, which could be achieved within accounting system. It is substantiated that insider trading is not only transactions that have an impact on a company's shares price, but it is also trade in closed information, that affects trading companies’ resources and stability and is carried out by its employees. Practical implications. The author developes a sequence of internal auditor’s actions during the audit: the analysis of bribery facts, kickbacks and financial corruption violations that arose in a trading enterprise past activity; the identification of signs of possible schemes of conspiracy to steal trading company property, as well as the level of employees’ corruption and bribery inclination; the analysis of internal regulatory documents on combating of corruption, repatriation and bribery within a trading company, and developing recommendations for senior management on those document content and form improvement. Value/originality. In order to minimize the potential external and internal risks that may result in financial economic crimes and inaccurate display of information on commodity and other transactions in the accounting system, the detailed program of forensic audit of economic crime prevention is developed.