San Antonio lawyer Rex Cruse, who represents the Reichardts, says the family tried to cut costs by handling the accounting and property transfers themselves.

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Accounting for the property damage component is straightforward.

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Greene insisted that he had gone forward with a substantial material fraud claim based on the accounting produced by LB Property.

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In December foreclosure inventory increased 9% nationally versus the year before, with Florida accounting for the most new distressed property.

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Financial Accounting Standards Board rules say that real property should be depreciated over 40 years.

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Northern Europe has the edge, thanks to an inviting combination of less bureaucracy, a more developed legal system, better accounting systems and easier ways to transfer intellectual property, says Marco Da Rin, associate professor in finance at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

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Asset misappropriation was most common, with 30% of companies reporting it, followed by intellectual property infringement (15%), corruption and bribery (13%), accounting fraud (12%) and money laundering (4%).

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Current accounting rules allow retailers that sign certain long-term leases to omit the leased property from their balance sheets. (The basic rule is that omission is acceptable if the lease term is less than 75% of the useful life of the building.) But the Financial Accounting Standards Board may change that next year.

FORBES: Retailers

The United States General Accounting Office says that estimate of the costs of 11 September includes the direct destruction of property as well as indirect losses caused by businesses closing.

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