Research On Civil Liability Of Forensic Accounting

Forensic accounting is the use of relevant financial knowledge by forensic accountants to provide services on legal matters involving financial issues,mainly for court testimony or debate.The duty of the forensic accountant is different from that of the general certified public accountants,it relates to judicial justice and litigation efficiency,which will not only cause pure economic losses,but also cause the wrong judgment of the case,resulting in damage to property and even the infringement of the right to personal freedom.It is therefore necessary to clarify the responsibilities of the forensic accountant.The first part mainly expounds the research background,significance and the development of legal system at home and abroad.Forensic accounting is a new field which develops with the increasing of economic cases,and is a special field involving law and accounting.The author searched the cases involving the forensic accounting business in the adjudicative paper network,and found that the judgment of forensic accounting institutions and personnel to assume responsibility is very few.At present,most of the research on forensic accounting focuses on the current situation of forensic accounting theory and practice,there is little special study on the civil liability of forensic accounting,only a few books and articles mention the importance of the civil liability of forensic accounting,but no systematic analysis of its civil liability.Therefore,the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the civil liability of legal accountants for theoretical and practical reference.The second part is an overview of the concepts and characteristics of forensic accounting.China’s forensic accounting was introduced from the United States at the end of the 20th century,the emergence of forensic accounting in China and the reform of China’s judicial appraisal management system and the implementation of the "expert auxiliary person" system is not unrelated.In our country,the legal accountant mainly takes the expert auxiliary personnel and the judicial accounting appraiser to carry out the relevant business activities,can accept the court appointment or entrust,can also accept the parties entrusted to serve the court,mainly by the certified public accountant to assume the role of similar western expert witness.The provider of forensic accounting opinion is essentially a kind of expert,but it is different from the expert sat out of the general discussion,so the civil liability of forensic accounting can,in principle,apply the general provisions of the relevant expert liability,and at the same time,the particularity of the applicable law should be considered accordingly.The third part is the analysis of the current situation of civil liability between China and forensic accounting,including the current situation of legislation and practice.Although some scholars have established the system of expert responsibility in the Draft of the Scholars of the Civil Code,which has been implemented,and the draft Civil Code,which has been promulgated,the expert liability has not been included.In judicial practice,the laws and regulations involving the civil liability of forensic accounting include cpitary accountants,relevant standards for auditing business,rules relating to forensics and expert supportpersons,as well as relevant provisions on contracts and infringements in the draft Civil Code,of which the standards of CPA and auditing business are used most in practice.In practice,there are problems such as insufficient supply of existing legal norms and difficulties in the claim of rights by victims.The fourth part discusses the choice of the nature of civil liability of our country’s forensic accounting experts,combined with the practice of our country.China’s current forensic accounting experts in practice and common law system is different,the common law system is the expert witness system,the contract parties are parties to the case,the contract of our country can be the court of this authority organs can also be the parties to the case.According to the client’s differences,the author discusses the nature of the civil liability of forensic accounting:1,the nature of the liability of the court designated forensic accounting experts.2,the nature of the responsibility of the parties to the case entrusted to forensic accounting experts.The fifth part discusses the principle of liability for tort in forensic accounting and the elements of composition.It is considered that the principle of fault attribution should be applied to the burden of proof.In practice,there may be two kinds of forensic accounting infringement:1,the parties make important litigation decisions based on this opinion.This situation is not much different from the general assertion of expert responsibility.2.The court made a wrong judgment on the basis of that opinion.Under our country’s national compensation system,the court should bear the main responsibility for failing to fulfill its legitimate obligation of examination and cross-examination,and the forensic accounting experts should bear the supplementary responsibility within the scope of their fault.The sixth part analyzes the principle of liability for forensic accounting default and the constituent elements.The principle of attribution is not strict liability or absolute liability,but the principle of fault liability,which is not fundamentally different from the principle of liability to tort.The constituent elements shall include breach of contract,damage,causality,and practice of fault.However,the forensic accounting expert’s breach of contract is in fact a breach of the duty of care and other professional obligations,which coincides with the practice of fault,and therefore there is no essential difference between the liability for tort damages in the constituent elements.The seventh Part analyzes the liability of civil liability of forensic accounting.The subject of liability compensation shall be an institution,which may recover compensation from the practitioners who are at fault after assuming its responsibilities.In the case of state compensation,the compensation organ may recover compensation from the forensic accounting institution or personnel according to the degree of fault.Economic loss is usually manifested in two forms:first,the actual loss suffered by the reliance on the professional skills or opinions of forensic accountants.Second,if the forensic accountant is not at fault,the victim can get a more favourable outcome in the proceedings.The amount of compensation can be calculated using the "value difference method".The nature of the forensic accounting opinion will affect the outcome of the case,but it does not have "quasi-judgmental" in itself,because whether it is adopted needs to be cross-examination by both parties,the judge judge judgment.However,the investigation of its civil liability must be based on the premise of exhaustion of relief,such as appeal,retrial,after full cross-examination.