Commentary: Citibank analyst’s two-sandwich meal – why expenses are a fraught form of fraud

THE EXPENSES DON’T LIE

Fairly or not, Fekete’s case reminds me of a piece of advice an executive gave me years ago that I have never forgotten. If a company wants to fire someone, the easiest way to do it is to go through their expenses.

That’s because of something else that has made the Citi sandwich case so compelling: We probably all know someone who has been tempted to cheat on their expenses.

It is not entirely clear how rife expenses fraud is. Research on the topic tends to be done by companies that sell expenses software and so are hardly disinterested observers.

Still, having been doomed to an expenses system so abject it makes grown men and women howl, I am inclined to believe one 2018 survey that claimed employees forced to wrestle with unnecessarily fiddly and burdensome systems were more than twice as likely to cheat as those who used simpler ones.

However bad such fraud may be today though, I am sure it used to be worse, at least in journalism.

In my office, the Citi story unleashed a stream of memories about the stunningly creative expense claims that famed journalists once made. Allegedly.

Did I know about the man who shipped his grand piano back to Europe from Africa? Or the chap who kept claiming for boarding school fees long after his children left school?

I did not, possibly because the stories were apocryphal, though I have heard plenty like them. I also remember the days when generous expense claims were not only normal but actively encouraged.

The pressed finances of today’s news outlets mean the age of Fleet Street legends driving accountants to mental breakdowns with wild expense claims has faded. But I still treasure the memory of one of my first newsroom bosses who snapped: “Why haven’t you claimed for any lunches yet? Do you like paying to work here?”