Filing teardowns

How we read the filings behind the headlines.

Public-record analyses: how the filings signalled the problem before it broke. Not UV client engagements.

Every major accounting failure. And every disclosure masterclass. Left a trail in the filings. We break down the ones that mattered, because that's the same pattern-recognition we bring to yours. For practical how-to guidance, see the articles.

Fraud · DAX collapse€1.9B

Cash that never existed. And the audit that blessed it.

A quarter of the balance sheet sat in trustee accounts no auditor had independently confirmed for years.

Read the breakdown
Fraud · Nasdaq$310M

A growth story invented one spreadsheet at a time.

The invented sales needed somewhere to reconcile, so the COO’s team built a fake operations database.

Read the breakdown
Window-dressing$50B

Repo 105: swept off the balance sheet, every quarter.

Booked as sales, disclosed nowhere, and reversed within days of the quarter closing.

Read the breakdown
Fraud · SPEs$74B

The off-balance-sheet structures that hid everything.

Three entities failed a 3% equity test. That single test is most of the reason SOX exists.

Read the breakdown
Related party$90B

The distributor nobody disclosed.

A pharmacy Valeant funded and held a $100 million option to buy, named in no filing until investors forced the question.

Read the breakdown
Reserves$15B

When long-tail insurance reserves finally caught up.

Long-term care policies written decades earlier, on assumptions nobody had stress-tested in years.

Read the breakdown
Restatement$235M

Tone at the top, measured in dollars.

Not one large fraud. Seventeen areas of error, each bent the same direction by pressure to meet the budget.

Read the breakdown
Best practiceNegative CCC

Working-capital mastery as a competitive weapon.

Apple collects from customers roughly two and a half months before it pays its suppliers.

Read the breakdown
Best practiceTrust

Disclosure discipline that rebuilt investor confidence.

Segment recasts and early ASC 606 adoption let investors price the transition while it was still happening.

Read the breakdown
Best practicePlain English

Disclosure so clear it became a moat.

5,502,284% compounded from 1964 to 2024, reported in language a first-year analyst can follow.

Read the breakdown
Delisting · Governance360 days

MiMedx: How a Delinquent 10-K Became a Delisting and a Court-Ordered Annual Meeting

A revenue problem became a filing delinquency, the delinquency exhausted the 360-day cure, and a court ordered the meeting.

Read the breakdown
Cash-flow fraudOpex as capex

Anatomy of a Cash Flow Fraud: Penn West's 'Reclass to Capital' and the Restatement That Followed

Reclassify an operating cost as capital and net income may not move. Operating cash flow always does.

Read the breakdown
Going concern108 days

Bed Bath & Beyond: When the Going-Concern Disclosure Arrives 108 Days Before Chapter 11

108 days from the substantial-doubt disclosure to Chapter 11. The forensic question is what the prior 10-Q left out.

Read the breakdown
SPAC warrantsApr 2021

Ten Paragraphs That Restated an Industry: The 2021 SPAC Warrant Wave

Ten paragraphs from the SEC staff, and hundreds of SPACs restated. Two clauses did all the damage.

Read the breakdown
Leases · ASC 842Non-reliance

Sonder Holdings: When a Balance Sheet Made of Leases Breaks, an ASC 842 Restatement Teardown

When the balance sheet is, to a first approximation, a portfolio of leases, an ASC 842 error is not a footnote.

Read the breakdown
Related party · Item 404$10M

Anatomy of a $10 Million Omission: The SEC's Related-Party Case Against Lyft

No fraud charge, no restatement, no alleged investor loss. One omitted Item 404 disclosure, and a $10 million penalty.

Read the breakdown
Revenue fraud5 years

MiMedx: How Distributor Side Agreements Turned 5% of Revenue Into a Five-Year Restatement

Distributor side agreements on about 5% of revenue reached back and restated five years of results.

Read the breakdown
Segments · ASC 280$2.7B

The $1 Million Segment: How Sony's 'Entertainment' Aggregation Hid a Billion in Losses

Aggregate a deteriorating business with a profitable one and the losses stay invisible until they arrive all at once.

Read the breakdown

The same eye that catches these patterns in public filings is the one reviewing yours.

Let's have a conversation