On September 28, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced two settlements against public companies and individual charges against the former controller and chief accounting officer and the former chief financial officer of one of the companies. In its accompanying public announcement, the SEC advised that “The actions are the first arising from investigations generated by the Division of Enforcement’s EPS Initiative, which utilizes risk-based data analytics to uncover potential accounting and disclosure violations caused by, among other things, earnings management practices.” This initiative exemplifies the harnessing of “Big Data,” i.e., large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations.
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