Question

1. You must explain the three concepts in no more than three complete sentences each.
2.   You should contrast the concepts in no more than two full sentences for each.

Concept	Explain the concept	Contrast the concept (how they resemble or differ from each other)
Illegal appropriation		illegal appropriation vs corruption
Corruption		Corruption vs Financial statement fraud
Financial statement fraud		Financial statement fraud vs Illegal appropiation

Answer 1

Illegal appropriation refers to seizing something from someone when you are having no right to do so. It is illegal in law. Like we take an example, a land belongs to a person and a business commiting fraud and without the concent of that person takes the land from him to set up his business. This is illegal appropriation. There are many property laws to protect individuals from this fraud, anyone is taking someone's property or anything belonging to them, without having any right to do so.

If we compare illegal appropriation with corruption, in corruption the person or organization commiting crime has been given an authority of which they are misusing their authority. Both are a type of crime which is illegal but the major difference is that in illegal appropriation the person commiting crime has no given authority or has no right to do so. But in corruption the person or organization is already at a given position or authority and is misusing his power and commiting fraud.

Above we saw an example of illegal corruption, now let us see an example of corruption. A collectorate has been assigned to bring a tendor in market and 5 people are to be given the tendor. Total 20 people have applied for it. The collectorate takes money from 5 dealers and gives tendor to them. Now this is corruption as he is misusing his power.

Now we have already understood what is corruption. Misusing one's power, one's authority and commiting fraud is corruption. We saw this by an example mentioned above.

If we compare it with financial statements fraud, one thing is common that both have authority and they are misusing it. But in the case of financial statements fraud, it is specifically related to financial statements. People or organizations involved in making of financial statements can manipulate the data according to them and hence contribute to financial statements fraud. This is done by many companies to show outsiders and stockholders that the company is earning well but in reality it is not so. This is misleading the stockholders as well as the stakeholders. This is a type of fraud and should be controlled by the organizations commiting this.

Let us see this financial statements fraud using example. A company in the end of the year while preparing its financial statements saw that they gave incurred less profit than the last year and could not achieve their target which was to be achieved. The people involved in making statements, manipulate few data in the income statement that leads to increase in the profit made this year and hence now it matches the target. Now we can say people are misusing their authority and it is a fraud done to the people who have invested their money in this company.

If we compare financial statements fraud with illegal appropriation, there is difference of authority. In illegal appropriation, there is no authority to the person commiting the crime but in financial statements framework fraud, the person is having authority but is misusing his powers. One more difference is financial statements fraud is only concerned with financial statements whereas illegal appropriation is concerned with property or belonging of any individual.

Examples relating both illegal appropriation and financial statements fraud is already discussed above.