WASHINGTON — Fannie Mae's former finance chief and controller share primary responsibility for the accounting failures at the mortgage company struggling to emerge from an $11 billion scandal, a company-ordered report said yesterday.

It detailed a breakdown in financial controls and found an arrogant corporate culture at the government-sponsored company that is the biggest U.S. financer of home mortgage loans.

No major new accounting problems were cited in the report that followed an 17-month investigation by a team led by former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H.

But there are many details. For example, Fannie Mae in 1998 was said to have improperly put off accounting for $200 million in expenses so executives could collect $27 million in bonuses. Rudman's inquiry affirmed this.

Documents show that top management was focused on the $200 million deferral and on meet-ing earnings targets so full bonuses would be paid.

Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions that helped the company meet the 1998 earnings targets, according to the former director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. The agency first discovered the accounting-rule violations and earnings manipulation.

Rudman's report said Fannie Mae's former chairman and chief executive, Franklin Raines, contributed to a culture of arrogance at the Washington-based company that is formally known as the Federal National Mortgage Association.

In December 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Fannie Mae to restate its earnings back to 2001; this correction is expected to reach an estimated $11 billion. The housing office's review has not ended and the Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation.

Rudman's report said Fannie Mae executives, especially former chief financial officer Timothy Howard, gave the company's board incomplete and sometimes misleading information regarding accounting and finances.

Howard and Raines were ousted in December 2004.

The report said Howard and former controller Leanne Spencer, who resigned last year, "were primarily responsible" for the flawed accounting practices.

The investigation did not find that Raines knew that the accounting practices violated rules but it said he "contributed to a culture that ... was ultimately responsible for the failures."