Are Bribes Lurking on the Balance Sheet?

In a commentary for FCPA Blog, Cody Worthington, a Senior Manager in the Forensic Investigations group at Johnson Controls International plc, urges compliance officials to check the balance sheet when looking for transactions to test as part of an anti-bribery assessment. "While it is true that corrupt payments may eventually flow through the income statement, the accounting for related activities sometimes starts on the balance sheet; and it can take years before the corrupt payment ends up in an income statement account," Worthington notes.