Case Study Enron Scandal - 5642 Words

CASE 3 Enron: Questionable Accounting Leads to Collapse Once upon a time, there was a gleaming headquarters office tower in Houston, with a giant Tilted ―Eâ€â€" in front, slowly revolving in the Texas sun. Enron‘s suggested to Chinese feng shui practitioner Meihwa Lin a model of instability, which was perhaps an omen of things to come. The Enron Corporation, which once ranked among the top Fortune 500 companies, collapsed in 2001 under a mountain of debt that had been concealed through a complex scheme of offbalance –sheet partnership. Forced to declare bankruptcy, the energy firm laid off four thousand employees; thousand more lost their retirement saving, which had been invested in Enron stock. The company‘s shareholders lost tens of†¦show more content†¦Delivering bad news could result in the ―deathâ€â€" of the messenger, so problems in the trading operation, for ~ample, were covered up rather than being communicated to management. Enron Chair Ken Lay once said that he felt that one of th e great successes at Enron was e creation of a corporate culture in which people could reach their full potential. He said at he wanted it to be a highly moral and ethical culture and that he tried to ensure that people did in fact honor the values of respect, integrity, and excellence. On his desk was an Enron paperweight with the slogan ―Vision and Values.â€â€" Despite these intentions, however, ethical behavior was not put into practice. Instead, integrity was pushed the side at Enron, Particularly by top managers. Some employees at the company believed that nearly anything could be turned into a financial product and, with the aid of complex statistical modeling, :traded for profit. Short on assets and heavily reliant on intellectual capital, Enron‘s corporate culture rewarded innovation and punished employees deemed weak. ENRON’S ACCOUNTING PROBLEMS Enron‘s bankruptcy in 2001 was the largest in U.S. corporate history at the time. The bankruptcy filing came after a series of revelations that the giant energy trader had been using partnerships, called special-purpose entities (SPEs), to concealShow MoreRelatedEnron Essay1433 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Causes and Effects of the Enron Accounting Scandals Name: Do Minh Tam Class: MEP 100 Lecture: Karen Bird Date: December 24, 2010 Introduction Background From the 1980s until now, there have been a lot of accounting scandals which were widely announced on by media. The result of this situation is many companies were bankruptcy protection requests, and closing. One of the most widely reported emulation of accounting scandals is Enron Company. Enron Corporation is one of the largestRead MoreCorporate Fraud Has Taken The World By Storm For Over The Past Decade1479 Words   |  6 PagesThe biggest fraud cases to ever occur happened in 2001 and 2002 and since then fraud seems to be more and more common around the world. According to Forbes.com (n.d) the biggest fraud cases to ever occur was Enron, Bernard Madoff, Lehman Brothers, and Cendant, with Enron being the largest accounting scandal to ever take place. Prior to Enron’s fraud scandal coming to light in 2001, they were the seventh largest company in the United States by revenue, this was the same year Enron filed bankruptcyRead MoreEnron Scandal1477 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Current issue: Scandals in auditing Enron Scandal 1. Introduction Accounting scandals are political or business scandals which arise with the disclosure of financial misdeeds by trusted executives of corporations or governments. 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Enron Corp. was left with $12 billion in assets which was to be distributed among more than 20,000 creditors. Around 80% of creditors of Enron backed the long-awaited reorganization planRead MoreEnron Case Study Analysis1699 Words   |  7 PagesBusiness Strategy Enron Case Study 09/08/12 Enron Case Study: From Company to Conspiracy 1. What is the History of Enron, and what current situation does it find itself in? Enron was created by a combination of companies. These companies were Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. These companies were merged together in July 1985. CEO of Houston Natural Gas, Kenneth Lay became chairman and CEO of the combined company. This happened in February 1986. The company changed its name to Enron on April 10th