Erik Lie: Catching Cheats, Fraud Detection, and the Board’s Evolving Role
Erik Lie is the Amelia Tippie Chair in Finance and Professor at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. His new book, Catching Cheats: Everyday Forensics to Unmask Business Fraud, offers a compelling look at how forensic economics and data-driven analysis can help identify wrongdoing that remains hidden in plain sight. We talk about a broad range of governance and fraud-related issues, beginning with the challenges of private-market data, the evolving responsibilities of directors in fraud detection, and real-world lessons from the Bernie Madoff case and other historic white-collar scandals.
Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein · Erik Lie, Evan Epstein
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (cdn.simplecast.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
(0:00) Intro
(1:30) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel
(2:16) Start of interview
(3:01) Erik's origin story
(6:10) His role at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.
(7:49) Exploring his book Catching Cheats
(9:39) About the field of forensic economics
(11:00) The Challenge of Private Market Data and Fraud *Reference to our Startup Litigation Digest
(16:24) Board Responsibilities in Fraud Detection
(19:03) Challenges for private company boards
(21:22) Insights and red flags from the Madoff Case
(26:30) Insider Trading and Its Challenges
(31:29) The Role of Whistleblowers in Fraud. Reference to E142 with Tyler Shultz and E130 with Mary Inman (whistleblower attorney)
(35:44) Cultural Perspectives on White-Collar Crime
(39:59) The Intersection of Vision and Fraud
(41:27) Fraud problems in academia
(44:00) The Impact of AI on Fraud Dynamics *suggested read: The Trillion Dollar Governance Reckonings
(49:46) The role of directors in the stock backdating scandals "they were happy beneficiaries"
(51:03) Books that have greatly influenced his life:
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1997)
(53:45) His mentors *discussion about the Norges Bank Investment Mgmt Fund ($2T AUM) and its ethical issues.
(56:23) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by.
(57:10) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves.
(58:08) The living person he most admires: Bill Gates.
Erik Lie is the Amelia Tippie Chair in Finance and Professor at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. His new book, Catching Cheats: Everyday Forensics to Unmask Business Fraud, offers a compelling look at how forensic economics and data-driven analysis can help identify wrongdoing that remains hidden in plain sight.
You can follow Evan on social media at:
X: @evanepstein
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/
Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/
__
To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/
__
Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License