Easy Prey Investors

Over the past twenty-five years, a series of actions, omissions, and failures by Canada's lawmakers and the purported gatekeepers of investors' rights have left Canadians' investments, pensions, and retirement savings at greater risk. Bodies such as provincial securities commissions have abandoned their obligations to safeguard investors and allowed published and audited financial statements in Canada to become unreliable. Yet these distorted financial statements are used by financial analysts who present them as accurate, leaving investors in the dark about serious risks and negative impacts on their savings. In Easy Prey Investors, investigative forensic accountants Al and Mark Rosen examine the circumstances - beginning with a 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the reliability of audited statements - that have led to the proliferation of Ponzi schemes and other financial manipulations, and a corresponding lack of accountability among auditors. Based on their many years of experience in major Canadian court cases involving collapsed companies, the authors reveal the full stories behind financial trickery and describe the disturbing consequences for investors. They show how a combination of inaction by lawmakers and illogical delegation of regulatory power to conflicted financial statement auditors has seriously harmed savers, as well as how most conventional protections have been stripped away from investors. Why save in Canada when money can so easily be stolen? Prying open doors too often sealed shut, Easy Prey Investors illuminates the unpleasant details of financial manipulation and suggests new ways to guide and protect investors and their families.

"No one in Canada is better qualified to write this long-overdue book than these two outstanding forensic accountants. In Easy Prey Investors, Al and Mark Rosen present startling and rampant instances of dangerous systemic flaws and risks which require serious consideration and debate." R.T. Naylor, McGill University

Al Rosen and Mark Rosen are co-founders of Accountability Research Corporation and have written columns for Canadian Business Magazine, The Financial Post, and Advisor's Edge Report. They both live in Toronto.