Accounting fraud

Filings of securities class actions with accounting-related allegations increased 47 percent in 2014, according to a new study.

An accounting scandal, a failed merger and the departure of top executives would normally make a company toxic to acquirers. Not for Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., the subject of a $11 billion bidding war that drove the drugmaker’s stock close to its highest-ever price.

Noble Group Ltd. denied inflating the balance-sheet value of contracts as Asia’s biggest commodities trading house published a rebuttal against allegations by Iceberg Research, an anonymous group that’s questioned the company’s accounting methods. Noble’s shares rose.