Saurav Dutta

Head of School at the School of Accounting, Curtin University
The new Head of School at the School of Accounting, Professor Saurav Dutta joins Curtin from New York, USA. Throughout his academic career spanning over 25 years, he has engaged in high-impact research which has greatly informed industry practices, including his work on uncovering Lehman’s Repo 105 accounting practices. In the United States, he has influenced public policy in his role as an Academic Fellow in the Office of Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In that role, from 2010 to 2012, he helped implement the Dodd-Frank Act and other measures from ‘lessons learned’ during the 2007-08 global financial crisis. He worked closely with then Chief Accountant, Mr. James Kroeker, who is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). While at the SEC, Saurav also served as a liaison with FASB, PCAOB, IASB and IAASB, all of which are critical standard-setting bodies that affect the accounting profession.

Saurav has also been engaged by the New York State Attorney General’s Office to investigate billing practices for a multi-national wholesale distributor. He was engaged by the SEC to determine appropriateness of AIG’s derivative accounting and United Rentals’ consolidation accounting resulting in settlement and imposition of monetary fines on the companies. Under the purview of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York, he was involved in designing statistical procedures to aid in the disbursement of amounts ranging between $500 million and $6.1 billion for settlements of MCI-WorldCom, Global Crossing, Cendant, and HealthSouth, relating to their fraudulent financial reporting. He was also involved with the reparations of more than 400 million Swiss Francs from the Swiss banks to Holocaust victims, under the purview of the U.S. District Court of Eastern New York.

Saurav has authored a book, Statistical Techniques for Forensic Accounting, published by Financial Times Press in 2013. He has also authored White Papers and Course material for the Institute of Management Accounting. He has published more than 40 academic papers in reputed U.S. and international journals and has presented his work in numerous national and international venues.