Download or read book The Enron Scandal a Decade Later written by Alexandre Di Miceli da Silveira and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 2011 has marked a decade since the Enron collapse, considered the most emblematic corporate scandal worldwide. Despite its importance, few studies provide an integrated analysis of the underlying failures that allowed Enron's debacle, going beyond the traditional view that reduces the case to a mere "accounting fraud". Few studies also evaluate the main lessons from the Enron scandal in perspective, by comparing its common causes with corporate scandals that emerged during the global financial crisis in 2007-2008. These are the gaps I aim to fill. I conclude that Enron's accounting manipulations, rather than being the cause of the problems, were the consequence of managerial failures and wishful blindness by its stakeholders. I also show that some lessons from Enron have not been fully internalized by companies worldwide, since most of its underlying causes are similar to those of several corporate scandals that emerged a couple of years later.
Download or read book After Enron written by William A. Niskanen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Enron addresses the major lessons about accounting, auditing, taxation, and corporate governance that are illustrated by the collapse of Enron and other recent major corporate scandals. The book then develops a set of proposals for changes in public policy that would lead accountants, bankers, board members, lawyers, and corporate managers to better serve the interests of the general public.
Download or read book The Smartest Guys in the Room written by Bethany McLean and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tenth-anniversary edition of the definitive account of the Enron scandal, updated with a new chapter The Enron scandal brought down one of the most admired companies of the 1990s. Countless books and articles were written about it, but only The Smartest Guys in the Room holds up a decade later as the definitive narrative. For this tenth anniversary edition, McLean and Elkind have revisited the fall of Enron and its aftermath, in a new chapter that asks why Enron still matters. They also reveal the fates of the key players in the scandal.
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 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 Enron written by Loren Fox and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-01-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair tocarnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America."-Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Senate Commerce Science & Transportation's Subcommittee, Hearing on Enron, 2/12/02 The speed of Enron's rise and fall is truly astonishing and perhaps the single most important story of corporate failure in the twenty-first century. In Enron investigative journalist Loren Fox promises readers nothing short of the most compelling and insightful investigation into Enron's meteoric ascent-regarded by Wall Street and the media as the epitome of innovation-and its spectacular fall from grace. In a lively and authoritative manner, Fox discusses how the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American business history happened, why for so long no one (except for an enlightened few) saw it coming, and what its impact will be on financial markets, the U.S. economy, U.S. energy policy, and the public for years to come. With access to many company insiders, Fox's intriguing account of this corporate debacle also provides an overview of the corporate culture and business model that led to Enron's high-flying success and disastrous failure. The story of Enron is one that will reverberate in global financial and energy markets as well as in criminal and civil courts for years to come. Rife with all the elements of a classic thriller-scandal, dishonest accounting, personal greed, questionable campaign contributions, suicide-Enron captures the essence of a company that went too far too fast.
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 Shaky Ground written by Bethany McLean and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a way, the situation is ironic: housing was at the root of the financial crisis, and six years after the meltdown, housing finance is still the greatest unsolved issue. The U.S. housing market is roughly $10 trillion, making it one of the largest segments of the bond market. Roughly 70 percent of the American population has a mortgage, and for most people, the mortgage is the most important financial instrument in their lives. But until the financial crisis, few people knew the essential role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in their mortgages. Given the $188 billion government bailout of the two firms the most expensive bailout in history the politics surrounding housing are worse than they've ever been, and the two gigantic firms sit in limbo. Best-selling investigative journalist Bethany McLean, the coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room andAll the Devils Are Here, explains why the situation is dangerous and unsustainable, and proposes a few solutions from the perfect, but politically unfeasible to the doable, but ugly.
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 265 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 Conspiracy of Fools written by Kurt Eichenwald and published by Random House. This book was released on 2005 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a study of the Enron scandal, the author goes behind the scenes to profile the players and expose business practices involved in the financial and political debacle that had a profound impact on both Washington and Wall Street.
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 2006 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the award-winning trilogy A Financial History of the United States now provides a definitive new reference or the major failures of American corporate governance at the start of the 21st century. An essential resource for students, teachers and professionals in business finance, and securities law, this exhaustive work provides in-depth coverage of the collapse of the Enron Corporation and other financial scandals that erupted in the wake of the market downturn of 2000. The authoritative volume traces the market boom and bust that preceded Enron's collapse, as well as the aftermath of that failure, including the Enron bankruptcy proceedings, the prosecution of Enron officials, and Enron's role in the California energy crisis. It examines the role of the SEC's full disclosure system in corporate governance, and the role of accountants in that system, including Arthur Andersen LLP, the Enron auditor that was destroyed after it was accused of obstructing justice. The author chronicles the meltdown in the telecom sector that gave rise to accounting scandals at Nortel, Lucent, Qwest, Global Crossing, Adelphia, and WorldCom. He traces other accounting and governance failures at Rite Aid, Xerox, Computer Associates, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi, HealthSouth, and Hollinger. Markham also covers such Wall Street scandals as the Martha Stewart trial, the financial analyst conflicts, and the mutual fund trading abuses. He analyzes the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation that was adopted in response to these scandals, the burdens it imposes, and continuing flaws in full disclosure. Markham also traces the remarkable market recovery that followed the scandals and addresses the misguided efforts of corporate governance reformers that led to the abuses.
Download or read book Forensic Accounting and Finance written by Bee-Lean Chew and published by Kogan Page Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete guide to Forensic Accounting and Finance, this book is ideal for advanced-level students and new or mid-level forensic accounting professionals looking to boost their specialist knowledge as part of their CPD, for accountants who wish to build more knowledge in this skills area or advanced undergraduates who feel ready to stretch themselves. Demand for expertise in this field is growing, and Forensic Accounting and Finance offers a complete, accessible and affordable guide, combining coverage of principle theory with the real and practical needs of the professional. Written by a strong academic and practitioner author team and in association with the Network for Independent Forensic Accountants, this book covers all forensic accounting topics from forensics as an extension of auditing and the basic principles of forensic accounting, to financial analysis and modelling, financial reporting, financial crime, and IT systems. Forensic Accounting and Finance shares current examples and case studies, highlighting cultural differences for key topics with updated regional legislation information available online for those looking for a truly global approach which is always up to date. Online supporting resources include PowerPoint lecture slides and links to regional updates.
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 Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis written by Stephen M. Bainbridge and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years from 2000 to 2010 were bookended by two major economic crises. The bursting of the dotcom bubble and the extended bear market of 2000 to 2002 prompted Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was directed at core aspects of corporate governance. At the end of the decade came the bursting of the housing bubble, followed by a severe credit crunch, and the worst economic downturn in decades. In response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which changed vast swathes of financial regulation. Among these changes were a number of significant corporate governance reforms. Corporate Governance after the Financial Crisis asks two questions about these changes. First, are they a good idea that will improve corporate governance? Second, what do they tell us about the relative merits of the federal government and the states as sources of corporate governance regulation? Traditionally, corporate law was the province of the states. Today, however, the federal government is increasingly engaged in corporate governance regulation. The changes examined in this work provide a series of case studies in which to explore the question of whether federalization will lead to better outcomes. The author analyzes these changes in the context of corporate governance, executive compensation, corporate fraud and disclosure, shareholder activism, corporate democracy, and declining US capital market competitiveness.
Download or read book A Decade of Disruption written by Garrett Peck and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening history evoking the disruptive first decade of the twenty-first century in America. Dubya. The 9/11 terrorist attacks. Enron and WorldCom. The Iraq War. Hurricane Katrina. The disruptive nature of the internet. An anxious aging population redefining retirement. The gay community demanding full civil rights. A society becoming ever more “brown.” The housing bubble and the Great Recession. The historic election of Barack Obama—and the angry Tea Party reaction. The United States experienced a turbulent first decade of the 21st century, tumultuous years of economic crises, social and technological change, and war. This “lost decade” (2000–2010) was bookended by two financial crises: the dot-com meltdown, followed by the Great Recession. Banks deemed “too big to fail” were rescued when the federal government bailed them out, but meanwhile millions lost their homes to foreclosure and witnessed the wipeout of their retirement savings. The fallout from the Great Recession led to the hyper-polarized society of the years that followed, when populists ran amok on both the left and the right and Americans divided into two distinct tribes. A Decade of Disruption is a timely re-examination of the recent past that reveals how we’ve arrived at our current era of cultural division.
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 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.
