An ex-partner at KPMG has been a bit naughty. In fact, he’s been more than a bit naughty as he’s been accused of insider trading.

Insider trading is the illegal activity of using information which isn’t in the public domain to make a personal gain or avoid a personal loss.

Scott London was a partner at KPMG in the US and led their LA audit practice. Two of their major clients were the nutrition supplement giant Herbalife and the leading footwear company Skechers.

It’s been alleged that Mr London passed on price sensitive information to a golfing friend of his who then subsequently made more than $1.2 million in illicit trading of shares ahead of merger or earnings announcements (in other words, the golfing friend bought shares at a low price knowing that the share price would increase as soon as the information he was secretly given was released into the public domain).

The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Mr London and his golfing buddy with insider trading on non-public information.

As soon as KPMG found out about this Mr London was fired and quickly became an ex-partner in the firm.

A statement from Mr London was published in the Wall Street Journal where he apologised “for any harm that results to KPMG”. He went on to say that “I regret my actions in leaking non-public data to a third party regarding the clients I served for KPMG”.

It’s not looking very good for Mr London as the authorities will no doubt come down heavily on him.

It’s unfortunate for KPMG as well as due to Mr London’s illegal activities their independence on the audits of Herbalife and Skechers had been compromised. As a result they have resigned as auditors of both Herbalife and Skechers.

Coca-Cola is one of the worlds’s largest companies and is certainly one of the best known global brands.

The company is good at lots of things and one thing they are extremely good at is working with their bottlers and managing the Coke distribution channel.

After all, the distinctive Coke bottles and cans can be seen in shops in all corners of the world. They certainly can get their products to the distribution outlets.

I came across a report the other day involving an inspirational person called Simon Berry.

Simon spent some time working in Zambia as an aid worker and quickly spotted that one of the major causes of death amongst children in that area was from diarrhoea. It’s a shocking statistic but in some countries, 1 in 9 children die before their 5th birthday from simple preventable causes such as dehydration from diarrhoea.

The sad thing is that there is a relatively cheap and easy cure for this life taking disease. A simple mix of oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements can provide the appropriate immediate nutritional and hydrating fluid that is necessary to save a child’s life.

The big problem though is that this cheap and easy cure isn’t in the remote villages that need them.

Simon and his team started looking into ways of getting the life saving medicine to the remote villages that needed them.

A fantastic solution has been identified. Namely, to produce the medicine in packets that would fit into the spaces between the bottles in the Coke crates. As a result, the medicine can be delivered alongside the Coke bottles without taking up any additional space (and hence without increasing the cost of transporting the Coke).

The photo above shows a father and his lovely daughter together with one of the specially designed anti-diarrhoea kits that fit into a Coke crate.

In my opinion this is an absolutely brilliant idea – life saving medicine being delivered via Coke’s world class distribution channel without taking any additional space up on the delivery trucks. A great partnership between the commercial sector and the Not-for-Profit sector where all parties win.

The idea is currently being piloted in Zambia and more details can be found at colalife.org.

Congratulations to all concerned for such a great project.

If you were in charge of a car company and you were going to launch a new car model, how would you do it?

Land Rover has just released the new version of their Range Rover Sport model and they appear to have launched it pretty well and have “ticked all the boxes” as they say in management speak.

First of all let’s think about the Range Rover Sport – what type of car is it and what image is the company trying to portray about the brand?

Some would argue that it’s a rough, tough, 4×4 off-road car that is also sporty and “sexy” so that it can be driven to sophisticated events.

Who better therefore to launch such a car than James Bond??

Sorry to disappoint a lot of you but James Bond doesn’t really exist. The actor Daniel Craig who plays James Bond in the famous 007 films however does exist so why not use him?

Now that the lead person in the launch has been identified where shall we hold the launch?

In a nice bit of segmentation, Land Rover identified which urban area has the highest concentration of Range Rover Sport sales and lo and behold it’s New York (now, whilst some of you may well be thinking that New York has lots of roads so just how important is it to buy such a powerful off road vehicle if you live there but let’s just ignore that discussion at the moment and move on).

So, launching a new product that is sexy with a rough and tough yet luxurious image – what could be better than James Bond and New York City?

The official launch event involved Daniel Craig driving the car through closed off New York streets whilst live video footage of journey was shown on the internet around the world and can be seen below.

In fact now that I’ve seen the video it looks like “James Bond” was so impressed with the new car that he forgot to stop off and pick up one of his famous Bond Girls to join him for the ride as he arrived at the event all by himself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous film star or not. If you don’t pay your taxes you could get into a lot of trouble.

Wesley Snipes, the famous star of films such as the Blade Trilogy and White Men Can’t Jump hasn’t starred in any films during the last 3 years.

And the reason why?

Well, the reason is that he’s been in jail since 2010 after not paying tax on $37 million of earnings.

Despite being able to defeat terrorists and vampires in his films he was unable to beat the US tax authorities and was convicted of federal tax evasion. The photo of Mr Snipes above is his mug shot courtesy of the United States Marshals Service.

For the last 3 years he has had to swap film premieres and glamorous parties for the confinement of a US prison cell.

It’s an interesting point but people often get the terms “tax evasion” and “tax avoidance” confused and think they are the same thing.

In fact the two phrases mean different things and in the UK for example tax evasion is where a person evades paying tax by illegal ways such as non declaration of income. Tax avoidance on the other hand is where a person minimises his or her tax liability in a legal way (whether or not it is in an ethical way though is a different matter altogether!).

Mr Snipes was convicted of tax evasion back in 2010 and has just been released from prison although he remains under house arrest until July when he will be free to start his film career again.

One thing he should probably do first though before he starts his film career again is to find a good tax accountant to make sure that he settles all his tax liabilities correctly on any of his future earnings and doesn’t evade any tax.

A few years ago Blackberry used to be the phone of choice amongst business people but the emergence of Apple’s iPhone and various Android smartphones has resulted in sales of Blackberry phones plummeting.

Earlier this year Blackberry launched their new phone, the Z10 and this was seen to be a make or break situation for the company behind Blackberry. Before the launch of the Z10 their latest set of sales results showed a fall of 47% from a year earlier and the Z10 was hoped to stop the fall in sales.

By all accounts it’s a pretty good phone and some commentators are saying that it could even be a rival for the ubiquitous iPhone.

It seems to be doing well but yesterday news emerged of a potential flaw in the design that could lead to some embarrassing situations.

It’s a sophisticated phone and one option it has is to share details of what music you’re listening to with your contacts on your phone. This alone makes you realise how far Blackberry has moved from a pure business phone where its main use was phone calls and emails.

Now, music sharing isn’t the embarrassing bit. Not even if your music listening habits include Justin Bieber.

No, the embarrassing bit is that when the music sharing option on the new Blackberry is turned on it not only shares what music you’ve been listening to but also shares what videos you’ve been watching on your phone.

There have been reports of people being surprised at what videos their contacts have been watching on their phones with some of those videos being how can I say it but, um, adult only videos with content of an adult nature.

A lot of you reading this are qualified accountants or are studying finance so I’m sure that most videos you watch on your phone are about the latest International Financial Reporting Standards so you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Then again there are some people who would maybe argue that it’s more embarrassing to be caught watching Financial Reporting videos than watching videos of people getting friendly with each other.

The Journal of Consumer Research published the results of five experiments into how the level of background noise can impact on performance when someone is working on creative tasks.

The  results are interesting and in simple terms found that a moderate level of ambient noise is better for enhancing performance on creative tasks than both low levels and high levels of ambient noise.

Or put another way, people are more likely to be able to work creatively if there is a medium level of ambient noise compared to where there is silence or loud noise in the background.

So, what lessons can we learn from this if we’re studying?

Whilst the optimum situation and level of background noise is very much a personal preference the science behind it could indicate that we should head somewhere with a mid level background noise.

Now, where could we find such a place?

Well, the local pub around the corner has a great mid level background noise as far as I’m concerned but there are some liquid distractions that will harm studying.

What about a coffee shop or cafe? Again, there would be some great mid levels of background noise but you’ve got to get there and what happens if you don’t find a seat. All of this will dig into your valuable study time.

Well, up step the fantastic website coffitivity.com which has just launched and enables you to play background coffeeshop noise on your computer whilst you’re studying.

You can’t order a Cafe Latte or Cappuccino but in my opinion it’s a great tool for those who like to study with a non intrusive background noise.

It’s also excellent for people who don’t have any friends to go to the coffee shop with.

Samoa is a small group of islands situated in the Pacific Ocean, approximately half way between Hawaii and New Zealand. I’ve heard it’s a beautiful place and hopefully one day I’ll be lucky enough to visit it. Following a recent announcement though then maybe it would be worth my while losing a bit of weight before I go there.

Although it’s only a very small country with a population of less than 200,000, the national airline has just launched a unique ticket pricing policy which if any of the major airlines followed would please one group of people but upset another group.

So who would be pleased and who would be unhappy?

Put simply – overweight people would be unhappy.

So what is their pricing policy?

Well, the airline has announced that ticket prices for their flights would be based on the combined weight of the passenger and their luggage. In other more blunt words, the fatter you are the more your flight ticket will cost whilst the slimmer you are the cheaper your ticket will be.

Are Samoa Air leading the way and will other airlines follow?

Arguably this is a fairer way of charging for flights as after all one of the major costs of airlines is fuel and the heavier you are the more fuel will be needed to move you through the air. This is especially true for the small planes that Samoa Air use.

It does also seem unfair when a slim person who has 1 kg of luggage above his or her limit is charged an excess luggage fee when somebody who is 50 kg heavier than them but is within their luggage limit doesn’t suffer an excess luggage fee.

Good luck to the airline with this novel pricing policy and also to their management accountants who will no doubt be monitoring movements in the average waistlines of the population when they are putting together their annual revenue forecasts.

What do you normally do when you go on holiday? Do you a) visit some historical sights, b) relax and put your feet up or c) buy a £5,500 handbag?

Two luxury fashion brands have just released their financial results and for one of them tourists have had a significant impact.

Fashion retailer Ted Baker had some great results and reported an 18% increase in revenues to ₤255 million while pre-tax profit increased by nearly 20% to ₤29 million.

The luxury handbag manufacturer Mulberry on the other hand has issued a profit warning forecasting annual revenue of £165 million and pre-tax profits of £26 million, both of which are significantly below analysts’ forecasts of £177 million and £31 million respectively.

Interestingly though if you look purely at the pre tax profit margin for both companies the Mulberry ratio of 16% is better than Ted Baker’s 11% but the market reacted badly to Mulberry’s announcement and their share price fell by 18%.

If you look behind the figures there are some interesting strategy issues which may give some clues behind what the market thinks of the prospects of the companies going forward.

A lot of the success of Ted Baker over the last year can be put down to a classic Ansoff’s Product – Market mix market development strategy (Ted Baker stores were opened on New York’s trendy Fifth Avenue as well as in Canada, China, Germany and the Netherlands).

This expansion into new territories is likely to boost Ted Baker’s earnings in the medium term and should be good news for their shareholders.

Mulberry however issued a statement saying that whilst their sales over the Christmas period were in line with expectations, their sales in the 10 weeks after Christmas were lower than expected. This was mainly put down to there being fewer big spending tourists from Asia visiting London than expected in this period (a classic external environmental PESTEL impact).

These high spending tourists from the Asian market have historically been major buyers of the luxury Mulberry handbags, including the £5,500 bag made from Ostrich leather.

Mulberry’s trading update was accompanied by a statement from Bruno Guillon, their chief executive officer and amongst other things he stated:

“We are focused upon optimising the distribution network and adapting our tactical marketing strategy to drive international brand awareness.”

“Optimising the distribution network” and driving “international brand awareness” – are we about to see a market development strategy from Mulberry?

If they get it right then it could be good news for their shareholders. As for Ostriches around the world however then maybe it’s not so good news…

Oh dear. Some unfortunate news for the world famous Michelin Guides.

Michelin Guides were first published in 1900 and are annual restaurant guides published by the top French firm Michelin.

Now, whilst the company has an undoubted level of expertise in reviewing restaurants, what they don’t appear to have is a similar level of expertise in registering websites.

One of the critical success factors for a lot of businesses nowadays is an up-to-date, informative and easy to find website.

Unfortunately for Michelin Guides though if you go to www.michelinguides.com you won’t find any details of the famous French firm or their products. Instead you’ll find some rather unusual photos of Michel Platini, the former French international football player and the current president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).

It’s been reported in the press that 28 year old Adam Mascall managed to buy the domain name for £6 and has set up a humourous website which pokes fun at the UEFA president.

The website contains photos of Michel Platini which have been changed to show him in various “guide” situations. Mr Mascall claims that the website is a homage to Michel Platini and reads “Michel in guides” rather than “Michelin Guides”.

The French firm are understandably not happy about this and have threatened legal action against Mr Mascall. As at the date of writing though www.michelinguides.com doesn’t have any information on restaurants but does have some rather fetching pictures of Mr Platini.

So in conclusion, the business lesson to be learnt from this is to make sure all important website names for your business are registered and re-registered when they expire.

Otherwise you take the risk of a 1980s French Footballer appearing in front of your customers rather than your products…

She is one of the most successful authors in the world and has sold over 100 million books featuring the character Dr Kay Scarpetta. She’s earnt a lot of money from her writing and has estimated earnings from her writing career of £300 million.

In the 4 years to 2009 alone she earned more than $40 million but when she checked her records from her accountants that were looking after her affairs, the famous author Patricia Cornwell found that her fortune was reduced to just $13 million.

As a result of this discovery the author sued her advisors Anchin, Block and Anchin, a New York accounting company for negligence and breach of contract.

Amongst other things she argued that her accountants had borrowed millions of dollars in her name without telling her, that money from the sale of one of her Ferraris was unaccounted for and she had had to unnecessarily pay taxes of $200,000 on the purchase of a private helicopter.

Perhaps the most important claim by the unhappy author was that the negligence caused by the accountants was so distracting that it caused her to miss a deadline for writing one of her books. This missed deadline cost her $15 million in non-recoverable advances and commissions.

One of the fundamental principles of codes of conducts for accountants around the world is “professional competence and due care” and although I haven’t followed this case in detail it does seem that the accounting company involved hasn’t followed this principle particularly well.

Ms Cornwell’s case against her former advisers reached a conclusion this week in Boston over in America and the judge presiding over the case agreed with the author and she was awarded $51 million for breach of contract and negligence.

After the drama of this court case I wonder whether we’ll see one of Patricia Cornwell’s future murder mystery novels involve the victims being accountants that lost a lot of money for one of their clients…