Download or read book The Enron Arthur Andersen Debacle written by Michael B. Bixby and published by Addison Wesley Longman. This book was released on 2003 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This supplement written by Michael Bixby can be packaged for Free with the text.

Download or read book Final Accounting written by Barbara Ley Toffler and published by Currency. This book was released on 2004-04-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A withering exposé of the unethical practices that triggered the indictment and collapse of the legendary accounting firm. Arthur Andersen's conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to the Enron debacle spelled the abrupt end of the 88-year-old accounting firm. Until recently, the venerable firm had been regarded as the accounting profession's conscience. In Final Accounting, Barbara Ley Toffler, former Andersen partner-in-charge of Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services, reveals that the symptoms of Andersen's fatal disease were evident long before Enron. Drawing on her expertise as a social scientist and her experience as an Andersen insider, Toffler chronicles how a culture of arrogance and greed infected her company and led to enormous lapses in judgment among her peers. Final Accounting exposes the slow deterioration of values that led not only to Enron but also to the earlier financial scandals of other Andersen clients, including Sunbeam and Waste Management, and illustrates the practices that paved the way for the accounting fiascos at WorldCom and other major companies. Chronicling the inner workings of Andersen at the height of its success, Toffler reveals "the making of an Android," the peculiar process of employee indoctrination into the Andersen culture; how Androids—both accountants and consultants--lived the mantra "keep the client happy"; and how internal infighting and "billing your brains out" rather than quality work became the all-important goals. Toffler was in a position to know when something was wrong. In her earlier role as ethics consultant, she worked with over 60 major companies and was an internationally renowned expert at spotting and correcting ethical lapses. Toffler traces the roots of Andersen's ethical missteps, and shows the gradual decay of a once-proud culture. Uniquely qualified to discuss the personalities and principles behind one of the greatest shake-ups in United States history, Toffler delivers a chilling report with important ramifications for CEOs and individual investors alike.

Download or read book Following the Money written by George Benston and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication A few years ago, Americans held out their systems of corporate governance and financial disclosure as models to be emulated by the rest of the world. But in late 2001 U.S. policymakers and corporate leaders found themselves facing the largest corporate accounting scandals in American history. The spectacular collapses of Enron and Worldcom—as well as the discovery of accounting irregularities at other large U.S. companies—seemed to call into question the efficacy of the entire system of corporate governance in the United States. In response, Congress quickly enacted a comprehensive package of reform measures in what has come to be known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ followed by making fundamental changes to their listing requirements. The private sector acted as well. Accounting firms—watching in horror as one of their largest, Arthur Andersen, collapsed after a criminal conviction for document shredding—tightened their auditing procedures. Stock analysts and ratings agencies, hit hard by a series of disclosures about their failings, changed their practices as well. Will these reforms be enough? Are some counterproductive? Are other shortcomings in the disclosure system still in need of correction? These are among the questions that George Benston, Michael Bromwich, Robert E. Litan, and Alfred Wagenhofer address in Following the Money. While the authors agree that the U.S. system of corporate disclosure and governance is in need of change, they are concerned that policymakers may be overreacting in some areas and taking actions in others that may prove to be ineffective or even counterproductive. Using the Enron case as a point of departure, the authors argue that the major problem lies not in the accounting and auditing standards themselves, but in the system of enforcing those standards.

Download or read book Inside Arthur Andersen written by Susan Elaine Squires and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors bring their unique insights to a close-range observation of Andersen's culture that has continued for more than 15 years. They first review Andersen's unique history and role; its traditionally careful attention to "enculturing" new employees via mentoring, social networking, rewards and punishments; and its social structure characterized by personal, "familial" relationships. Next, they narrate two decades of change at Andersen, showing how the firm's tightly integrated cultural system gradually began to devolve, rapidly coming apart in the wake of the 1990s new economy revolution. The book concludes with an insightful discussion of the systemic cultural and business factors that placed Andersen and many other organizations at risk, along with a realistic assessment of the proposed reforms.

Download or read book The Smartest Guys in the Room written by Bethany McLean and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century? Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money? Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book - fully updated for the paperback - tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall.

Download or read book Power Failure written by Mimi Swartz and published by Currency. This book was released on 2004-03-09 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

Download or read book Enron and World Finance written by P. Dembinski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-12-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four years after the debacle, the term 'Enron' has earned its place in the everyday vocabulary of business ethics. Hardly anyone understands the business intricacies of what really happened with the sophisticated energy conglomerate. Even fewer are those able to envision, beyond the business case, the ethical questions and dilemmas facing actors at any one stage of the drama. Using the collapse of Enron as a case study, this book not only shows how and where ethics came into play, but also draws lessons and discusses possible remedies that may prevent the whole financial system from falling apart as a result of either excessive greed or over-regulation.

Download or read book The Role of the Board of Directors in Enron s Collapse written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Enron Scandal written by Theodore F. Sterling and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface; Enron: A Select Chronology of Congressional, Corporate, and Government Activities; Enron and Stock Analyst Objectivity; Soft Money, Allegations of Political Corruption, and Enron; Enron: Selected Securities, Accounting, and Pension Laws Possibly Implicated in Its Collapse; The Enron Collapse: An Overview of Financial Issues; Auditing and Its Regulators: Proposals for Reform after Enron; Enron's Banking Relationships and Congressional Repeal of Statutes Separating Bank Lending from Investment Banking; Enron Bankruptcy: Issues for Financial Oversight; The Enron Bankruptcy and Employer Stock in Retirement Plans; Enron and Taxes; Title vs Enron Corp. and Fiduciary Duties Under ERISA; Possible Criminal Provisions Which May Be Implicated in the Events Surrounding the Collapse of the Enron Corporation; Index.

Download or read book Financial Oversight of Enron written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conspiracy of Fools written by Kurt Eichenwald and published by Crown. This book was released on 2005-03-14 with total page 1258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—imploded virtually overnight, leaving vast wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would last for years. Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions, taking readers behind every closed door—from the Oval Office to the executive suites, from the highest reaches of the Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers. It is a tale of global reach—from Houston to Washington, from Bombay to London, from Munich to Sao Paolo—laying out the unbelievable scenes that twisted together to create this shocking true story. Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a story that features a cast including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone. With its you-are-there glimpse into the secretive worlds of corporate power, Conspiracy of Fools is an all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.

Download or read book A Financial History of Modern U S Corporate Scandals written by Jerry W Markham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 775 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive new reference on the major failures of American corporate governance at the start of the 21st century. Tracing the market boom and bust that preceded Enron's collapse, as well as the aftermath of that failure, the book chronicles the meltdown in the telecom sector that gave rise to accounting scandals globally. Featuring expert analysis of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation that was adopted in response to these scandals, the author also investigates the remarkable market recovery that followed the scandals. An exhaustive guide to the collapse of the Enron Corporation and other financial scandals that erupted in the wake of the market downturn of 2000, this book is an essential resource for students, teachers and professionals in corporate governance, finance, and law.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics written by Deborah C Poff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2021-02-05 with total page 6500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This encyclopedia, edited by the past editors and founder of the Journal of Business Ethics, is the only reference work dedicated entirely to business and professional ethics. Containing over 2000 entries, this multi-volume, major research reference work provides a broad-based disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to all of the key topics in the field. The encyclopedia draws on three interdisciplinary and over-lapping fields: business ethics, professional ethics and applied ethics although the main focus is on business ethics. The breadth of scope of this work draws upon the expertise of human and social scientists, as well as that of professionals and scientists in varying fields. This work has come to fruition by making use of the expert academic input from the extraordinarily rich population of current and past editorial board members and section editors of and contributors to the Journal of Business Ethics.

Download or read book The Totally Unauthorized Enron Joke Book written by Tim Barry and published by I T Press. This book was released on 2002-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of jokes, top lists, poems, puns, news parodies and other humorous items about Enron, Arthur Andersen accounting and the biggest business disaster in U.S. History. The book uses contemporary events and celebrities to make the material come alive for the reader. Timely, irreverent and sharply satirical, the book can be enjoyed by anyone interested in contemporary humor.

Download or read book Following the Money written by George Benston and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication A few years ago, Americans held out their systems of corporate governance and financial disclosure as models to be emulated by the rest of the world. But in late 2001 U.S. policymakers and corporate leaders found themselves facing the largest corporate accounting scandals in American history. The spectacular collapses of Enron and Worldcom—as well as the discovery of accounting irregularities at other large U.S. companies—seemed to call into question the efficacy of the entire system of corporate governance in the United States. In response, Congress quickly enacted a comprehensive package of reform measures in what has come to be known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ followed by making fundamental changes to their listing requirements. The private sector acted as well. Accounting firms—watching in horror as one of their largest, Arthur Andersen, collapsed after a criminal conviction for document shredding—tightened their auditing procedures. Stock analysts and ratings agencies, hit hard by a series of disclosures about their failings, changed their practices as well. Will these reforms be enough? Are some counterproductive? Are other shortcomings in the disclosure system still in need of correction? These are among the questions that George Benston, Michael Bromwich, Robert E. Litan, and Alfred Wagenhofer address in Following the Money. While the authors agree that the U.S. system of corporate disclosure and governance is in need of change, they are concerned that policymakers may be overreacting in some areas and taking actions in others that may prove to be ineffective or even counterproductive. Using the Enron case as a point of departure, the authors argue that the major problem lies not in the accounting and auditing standards themselves, but in the system of enforcing those standards.

Download or read book The Enron scandal and the Sarbanes Oxley Act written by Andreas Bauer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: keine, University of Applied Sciences Hof, language: English, abstract: The downfall of Enron was one of the most momentous corporate scandals and bankruptcies in the history of the United States of America. This assignment deals with the timeline of Enron’s collapse and introduces the main charges against the company and it’s Board of Directors. Ultimately, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will be presented as major legislative response to this corporate fraud, before concluding with weighing the costs and benefits of this large-scale legislative project. -This paper provides a fundamental overview of Enron's collapse and the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley-Legislation-

Download or read book Pipe Dreams written by Robert Bryce and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2004-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures; it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humor, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball.