Insurance Fraud: Losses, Liabilities, and September 11

Abstract

This instructional case presents available facts and circumstances surrounding Fortress Reinsurance (Fortress Re). Fortress Re, an agent securing aviation reinsurance, managed a reinsurance pool that covered all four planes involved in the September 11, 2001 disaster. Fortress Re had engaged in deceptive financial reporting, misleading its business partners to believe they were protected in the event of catastrophic loss. The events on 9/11 led to the discovery of this fraud, resulting in multiple lawsuits against Fortress Re, its owners, and its auditor, Deloitte. The case explores the questionable financial reporting and auditing practices employed, as well as significant charitable contributions made with fraudulent funds. The case can serve as an instructional resource for teaching financial accounting, auditing, tax, ethics, and law. The instructional use of this case has been tested in undergraduate and graduate classes. The case can improve students' research skills, since students must use the Accounting Standards Codification and IASB website to answer the financial accounting questions, and a tax research database to address the tax questions. A survey assessing the case found that students exhibited an understanding of and an interest in the case.

Digitalization Challenges for SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review Perspective and Future Research

“…Open-mindedness and crossfunctional coordination reflect internal learning and sharing of ideologies and values, which help develop the foundation for integrating external knowledge and achieving knowledge creation and new outputs (Chen et al, 2019;Herrmann et al, 2007). Finally, smaller firms generally have more limited in-house IT resources (Anderson et al, 2012;Forsman, 2008), making implementing and using IT in innovation processes harder. Even if they successfully implement IT, they benefit less from the scalability of IT solutions (Kyobe, 2004).…”