Round-tripping, also known as round-trip transactions or Lazy Susans, is defined by The Wall Street Journal as a form of barter that involves a company selling "an unused asset to another company, while at the same time agreeing to buy back the same or similar assets at about the same price."
Swapping assets on a round-trip produces no net economic substance, but may be fraudulently reported as a series of productive sales and beneficial purchases on the books of the companies involved, violating the substance over form accounting principle.
[1] In international scenarios, round-tripping is a method of structuring to evade taxes[2] and to launder money.
[3] Many such companies have used round-tripping to distort the market by establishing false revenue benchmarks, aiming to meet or beat the numbers put out by Wall Street stock analysts.
As a result of abusive round trips, barter between publicly held companies has become discredited among professional investors.