Fraud and the interaction between political, legal and financial reporting regimes

There is evidence in the extant literature on frauds and its drivers and inhibitors at firm level. Yet, there is still the beliefs that (1) ‘Politicians could intervene to protect fraudster and that this intervention varies between political regimes of countries and (2) the legal regimes could be less rigour or contains loopholes that reduces deterrent incentives to frauds and fraudster’, let aside the financial reporting regimes. This is an anecdote that is yet to be demystified. This paper therefore argues that behind this anecdote, that there is an interaction between politics, laws and financial reporting on fraud and that the nature and magnitude of this interaction either deters or covers up frauds. The purpose of this paper is two phases: (i) to assess this triangular effect and (ii) to investigate how each type of political, legal and financial reporting regime impacts on fraud at a country level.