... International Journal of Business and Management Vol. 5, No. 10; October 2010 The Case Analysis of the Scandal of Enron Yuhao Li Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, Logan city, U.S.A E-mail: wyl_2001_ren@126.com, carolee1989@gmail.com Abstract The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time, Enron undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure. It is ever the most famous company in the world, but it also is one of companies which fell down too fast. In this paper, it analysis the reason for this event in detail including the management, conflict of interest and accounting fraud. Meanwhile, it makes analysis the moral responsibility From Individuals’ Angle and Corporation’s Angle. Keywords: Enron scandal, Accounting fraud, Moral responsibility, Analysis 1. Review of Enron’s Rise and Fall Throughout the late 1990s, Enron was almost universally considered one of the country's most innovative companies -- a new-economy maverick that forsook musty, old industries with their cumbersome hard assets in favor of the freewheeling world of e-commerce. The company continued to build power plants and operate gas lines, but it became better known for its...
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...Enron Corp.: Credit Sensitive Notes Solution Posted on January 28, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓ This case investigates an innovative bond issue by Enron. The coupon on the bond is indexed to the company’s credit rating, making it a credit derivative structure.« Hide by Sanjiv Das, Stephen Lynagh Source: Harvard Business School 16 pages. Publication date: Feb 28, 1997. Prod. #: 297099-PDF-ENG Case Study 2 – Enron and Arthur Andersen Enron Corporation Case Study 2 – Enron and Arthur Andersen Enron Corporation began as a small natural gas distributor and over the course of 15 years grew to become the seventh largest company in the United States. Soon after the federal deregulation of natural gas pipelines in 1985, Enron was born by the merging of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, a Nebraska pipeline company. Initially, Enron was merely involved in the distribution of gas, but it later became a market maker in facilitating the buying and selling of futures of natural gas, electricity, broadband, and other products. However, Enron’s continuous growth eventually came to an end as a complicated financial statement fraud and multiple scandals sent Enron through a downward spiral to bankruptcy. During the 1980s several major national energy corporations began lobbying Washington to deregulate the energy business. Their claim was that the extra competition resulting from a deregulated market would benefit both businesses and consumers. Consequently, the national government began...
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...The Enron Scandal and Moral Hazard Prof. Leigh Tesfatsion Department of Economics Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011-1070 http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ Last Revised: 3 April 2011 The Enron Scandal and Moral Hazard • Enron, the 7th largest U.S. company in 2001, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. • Enron investors and retirees were left with worthless stock. • Enron was charged with securities fraud (fraudulent manipulation of publicly reported financial results, lying to SEC,…) • QUESTION: In what ways are security market moral hazard problems at the heart of the Enron bankruptcy scandal? Brief Time-Line of the Enron Scandal • Enron was a Houston-based natural gas pipeline company formed by merger in 1985. • By early 2001, Enron had morphed into the 7th largest U.S. company, and the largest U.S. buyer/seller of natural gas and electricity. • Enron was heavily involved in energy brokering, electronic energy trading, global commodity and options trading, etc. Brief Time-Line of the Enron Scandal…Continued • On October 16, 2001, in the first major public sign of trouble, Enron announces a huge third-quarter loss of $618 million. • On October 22, 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) begins an inquiry into Enron’s accounting practices. • On December 2, 2001, Enron files for bankruptcy. : Oct – Dec 2001 Regulatory Oversight of Enron Auditors Arthur Anderson Audit Committee (Directors) SEC Company Report Shareholders Enron Board...
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...The Enron Scandal and Moral Hazard Prof. Leigh Tesfatsion Department of Economics Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011-1070 http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ Last Revised: 3 April 2011 The Enron Scandal and Moral Hazard • Enron, the 7th largest U.S. company in 2001, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. • Enron investors and retirees were left with worthless stock. • Enron was charged with securities fraud (fraudulent manipulation of publicly reported financial results, lying to SEC,…) • QUESTION: In what ways are security security market moral hazard problems at the heart of the Enron bankruptcy scandal? Brief Time-Line of the Enron Scandal • Enron was a Houston-based natural gas pipeline company formed by merger in 1985. • By early 2001, Enron had morphed into the 7th largest U.S. company, and the largest U.S. buyer/seller of natural gas and electricity. • Enron was heavily involved in energy brokering, electronic energy trading, global commodity and options trading, etc. Brief Time-Line of the Enron Scandal…Continued • On October 16, 2001, in the first major public sign of trouble, Enron announces a huge third-quarter loss of $618 million. • On October 22, 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) begins an inquiry into Enron’s accounting practices. • On December 2, 2001, Enron files for bankruptcy. : Oct – Dec 2001 Regulatory Oversight of Enron SEC Auditors Arthur Anderson Audit Committee (Directors) ...
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...analyse the groupthink’s concerns in the collapse of Enron. The collapse of Enron is less than three months, which Enron from a very prosperous company to a bankrupt enterprise. The collapse of Enron is one of the most grievous business failures in United States. This disastrous business failure had causes a large number of employees lost their jobs and retirement savings. Groupthink leads groups to make faulty judgments. Groupthink occurs when a group make wrong decisions as the pressures of group lead to deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”. There are several symptoms of groupthink. The issues to be resolved for Enron are collective rationalization, stereotypes of out-group, illusion of invulnerability, deceit to increase shareholders’ investments and self-censorship. The causes of the case study are illusion of unanimity, self-appointed mindguards, complicated transactions, belief in inherent morality of the group and direct pressure in dissenters. The solutions to the case study are challenge the norms, discuss with trusted associates, forbid related-party transactions for the senior officers, monitor the power of CEO and assign the role of critical evaluator. When there are symptoms of groupthink, there must be solutions to prevent and solve. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Purpose of the report 1.2 Company Background 2.0 SUMMARY OF THE CASE STUDY 3.0 GROUPTHINK 3.1 Definition of groupthink ...
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...about the Enron Corporation and Arthur Anderson. This assignment is to identify the background of Enron and Arthur Anderson and Enron fail. Other than that, identify the business risks that faced by Enron. Moreover, determine the responsibilities of board of directors and steps to improve corporate governance. Besides that, differentiated between rules-based accounting and principle-based accounting and the uses. In addition, there are discussion about auditor should allowed to provide non-audit services. There are also critical discussion on the reason audit partners struggle with making tough accounting decisions and a good recommendation of changes to be made. 1.0 Background of Enron Corporation and Arthur Anderson and fall Of Enron. 1.1 Background of Enron Corporation Enron was established in the middle of a recession in 1985, when Kenneth Lay CEO of Houston Natural Gas Company (HNG), persuaded a joining among Inter North Incorporate (Peterson). There was a young consultant named Jeffrey Skilling who had a background in banking organization (Peterson). He planned an innovative solution for Enron profit in the natural gas business (Sridharan, Dickes, & Caines). For instance, Enron buy natural gas from suppliers and sell to customers with the higher price (Sridharan, Dickes, & Caines). It is because the demand of natural gas increased (Peterson). Kenneth Lay was very impressed with Skilling’s new solution in 1990 and employed Skilling to handle the Enron Finance...
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...Running Head: ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS Assessing Organizational Readiness [STUDENT NAME] [PROFESSOR NAME] [COURSE TITLE] [DATE] Introduction Enron was the majority owner of Dabhol, which was a large combined cycle power plant situated on the western coast of the Maharashtra state in India. The project of Dabhol power plants was commenced in 1992 and took a total of nine years to begin operations of the plant. The total project cost of Dabhol was 2.9 million dollars, with Enron owning 65 percent of the plant followed by, Bechtel Enterprises owning 10 percent, General Electric owning 10 percent, and the state of Maharashtra Electricity Board holding 15 percent. Enron asserted that the Dabhol power plant is the largest gas-fired power plant in the world producing 2, 184 megawatts of electricity. The plant ceased operations in June 2001 that had arisen from a payment[pic] and contract dispute between the owners of the plant and the state of Maharashtra government. The paper will analyze the critical success factors (CSFs) as applied to the various facts found in the case study in “Politic, Institutions and Project Finance: The Dabhol Power Project”. The paper will also attempt to determine the benefits of the project, organizational readiness, and risk culture of the company with facts stated in the case study. By analyzing the CSFs and other components project risk recommendations will be given after a thorough analysis of the criteria. Critical Success Factors...
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...Case Study 1: Enron The story of Enron is one of corporate greed and intense competition. Former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling appears to be the person that created such competition between employees. He created a system where employees are ranked every six months, the employees ranked in the bottom 20% were forced out of the company. This ranking system led to a belief that high performance meant everything to the company. Ethical behavior was falling by the wayside at Enron and top executives either failed to notice it, or were too blinded by the stacks of money they were collecting to care. Sherron Watkins was a vice president at Enron. At the time she had been employed there eight years. It was at this time she was given the task of finding some assets to sell off. Watkins was quite possibly the first person to become concerned by Enron’s shoddy accounting practices. What she found was that many of Enron’s transactions were unclear at best, and most of them appeared to be backed only by their deflating stock. Concerned about what she saw she took her concerns to Mr. Ken Lay. Lay assured her that her concerns would be looked into by Vinson & Elkins, the company’s law firm. However, it appears that Vinson & Elkins quickly dismissed any concerns brought forward by Watkins. In fact, the law firm may have helped structure some of Enron’s special-purpose partnerships. The law firm never did claim liability, but did pay $30 million to Enron for...
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...pipeline decided to merge to form The Enron Corporation. Enron was once the seventh largest publicly-held corporation in the nation. The purpose of this case study is to first research how the corporate leaders at Enron, who are so smart, managed to display such poor judgment. Secondly, answer the question: What do you see as the contributing factors to the demise of corporate giants like Enron, World Com, TYCO, Arthur Andersen, and others? This case study will identify at least three, and explain how their poor judgment contributed to their demise. Also in this case study I will address the questions: What might possibly happen when a corporation is placed in an oversight role of a business partner? One example of this was Arthur Andersen serving as Enron's auditor. How might a corporation ensure that this does not happen? What risks are involved if an individual decides to blow the whistle on unethical behavior within their company or institution? Are they really protected by law? The corporate leaders at Enron although smart managed to make poor decisions first by falsely reporting net income and cash flow. “Enron claimed a net income of $979 million in that year, it earned $42 million” (Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Enron could also be defined as a cooperation with an arrogant culture, which “Enron executives believed competitors had no chance against it” (Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Enron had a belief that its employees were...
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...Case Study of the LJM2 Partnership in the Powers Report Criminal Justice 331 Professor Vaurio February 04, 2009 Case Study of the LJM2 Partnership in the Powers Report LJM, which stands for Lea, Jeffrey, Michael, the names of Andrew Fastow's wife and children, was a company created in 1998 by Enron's CFO, Andrew Fastow, to buy Enron's poorly performing stocks and stakes and bolster Enron's financial statements. Fastow proposed in October 1999 to Enron's finance Board the creation of LJM2 Co-Investment L.P. Fastow would act as general director of a much larger private equity fund that would be funded with $200 million of institutional funds. The question of Fastow’s dual role as Enron's CFO and LJM2's general director was not viewed as a conflict of interest was easily laid aside. LJM2, which is a partnership created to buy assets owned by the Enron Corporation to help move debt off of the balance sheet and transfer risk for their other business ventures. These Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) was established to keep Enron's credit rating stay high, which was very important in their fields of business. A special purpose entity is a trust, corporation, limited partnership, or other legal vehicle authorized to carry out specific activities as enumerated in its establishing legal document. LJM2 entered into 26 deals with Enron to help the company move debt and assets off its books. The SPEs provides its sponsor with financing and liquidity while...
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...Corporate governance Estachy Simon Case Study : Enron Summary : I- Presentation and chronology II- The financial arrangement III- How the governance can explain it ? IV- Questioning the corporate governance model V- Conclusion I- Presentation and chronology: Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Enron employed approximately 20,000 staff and was one of the world's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and papercompanies, It was created in 1985, by the merger of the Houston Natural Gas company with InterNorth. This merger was management’s first attempt to develop a national pipeline system for natural gas. The following year, the former CEO of Houston Natural Gas, Kenneth Lay, became the chairman and CEO of Enron. At the beginning, its business model was very classic: production and transportation of gas, and distribution essentially on whosales markets. Quickly it became the major energy and petrochemical commodities trader in US. Throughout the late 1990s, Enron was almost universally considered one of the country's most innovative companies. The magazine Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years, from 1996 to 2000. In 1996, Jeffrey Skilling, old consultant of McKinsey, became the president and Chief Operating Officer of Enron, seven years after his enter his entry in the company. Enron has $40 billions in 1999, and $100 billions in 2000...
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...Ethics is the branch of study dealing with what is the proper course of life in human’s life or throughout society. It is the study of right and wrong in human endeavors. It is the value and pursue we categorize. It is regarding do we pursue for self interest or for the greater cause for society. One main culprit for Enron scandal was Arthur Anderson. It had served as Enron’s outside auditor since 1985. Not only did Anderson do external audits it also provided Enron internal auditing and consulting services. Anderson auditors helped Enron hides its earning manipulation. Arthur Anderson falsifying financial condition of the company and never disclosed it to the public. Anderson did all kinds of services for Enron such as external auditing, internal auditing and consulting services. This not only violates accounting services but because there are conflicts of interest among the services provided by Anderson. What we see from Enron case is that some people performed ethically and while others did not. Margaret Cecani who blew the whistle regarding the scandal Enron’s manipulation of the numbers in its finical report and the data. But, when we look at Kenneth lay the founder and the CEO of the company. Under his leadership he created a company with dishonest and lack of integrity among his employees and throughout company. Lay was not only caused investors to loose billions of dollars but he was also involved in fraud. One case was that telling his employees hard earned money...
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...Enron Corporation case study • The Enron debacle created what one public official reported was a "crisis of confidence" on the part of the public in the accounting profession. Lists the parties who you believe are most responsible for the crisis. Briefly justify each of your choices. The debacle of Enron, a US firm is looked upon as the worst debacle and fall out in the history of US bankruptcy filed cases. There are many parties involved when it concern to Enron debacle, which was accorded to accounting instability and the compromising factor of accounting profession itself. Out of the many parties in the league and the major force behind the debacle of Enron concern Andersen's, the accounting and auditing firm that once deserved name in the industry for its conscience in accounting professional services and auditing. As the case relates to, accounting audit for Enron is attended by Andersen's since long enough. However, the interesting feature is that some compromise in the profession of accounting services by Andersen's was notable, given that there are noteworthy feature of stock manipulation, especially in financial statements of Enron attended and audited by Andersen's. The statement and restatement of Enron also gives some probable indication for manipulation of accounting, where debate and counter debate in that regard from the prying eye of the media was a common feature. Thus, the involvement of Andersen's in Enron consultancy and professional auditing makes it...
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...THE ENRON CASE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study is about the fraudulence that happened in Enron, the conspiracy and other charges, the scandal that brought down the former US energy giant in 2001. The study is going to answer the question : "Is the Enron experience an illustration of the market system working or failing?” on the basis of a normative economy inquiry.` NORMATIVE ECONOMY Normative economics is that branch of economic inquiry that deals with value judgments—with what prices, production levels, incomes, and government policies ought to be. To arrive at an answer, the economist weighs the results of various minimum wage rates on the groups affected by them—the unemployed, employers, taxpayers, and so on. Then, on the basis of value judgments of the relative need or merit of each group, the normative economist recommends a specific minimum wage rate. Of course, values differ from one person to the next. In the analytical jump from recognizing the alternatives to prescribing a solution, scientific thinking gives way to ethical judgment. Objective of normative theory is to define what the responsibilities of an organisation in respect of stakeholders, and to define why companies should take care of other interest than just the shareholders interest. this theory is linked to moral, values and philosophic purposed. According to Freeman's normative theory, Evan and Freeman (1990), they define stakeholders as those groups which are vital to the survival and success of the...
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...ENRON CASE STUDY Title of the Article: * The first article of critique, talks about the ethical cultures and values of Enron and how this values and credence contributed to the collapse of this once corporate giants (Li, 2010). * Enron failures, the who, the how, and the why, that contributed to malpractices of its business practices (Gudikunst, 2006). Purpose of Research: The purpose of the first article of research is to depict the ethical views and practices of Enron’s Executives. During the Enron scandal several executives were charged with criminal acts from money laundering to insider trading and fraud (Li, 2010). This article of research shows how morals and ethical values differ in the eyes of different individuals. Second article of research explicate, how each stakeholders in the Enron scandal played a huge role in the collapse of the once was energy giant company (Gudikunst, 2006). Dr. Gudikunst explains how each executive and external stakeholder mislead employees and vested stakeholders in believing the organization was financially buoyant in their day to day business practices, and the reasons for the misappropriation of investors capital. Final this article touches the legal aspect of accounting practices. Research Questions Understanding an organization’s ethical values or business core practices is the baseline in understanding any defects which took place during the Enron’s scandal. Some of the purpose research questions for the first...
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