...ENRON: The Idiocy and the Irony Introduction Red flags were blinding as Enron learned about possible corruption with Enron Oil Trading in Valhalla, New York. After the merger between HNG and InterNorth, the Valhalla office, originally established by InterNorth seemed all but forgotten until quarterly and annual reports were due. Supervisors Tom Harding and Steve Sulentic were rarely on-site, preferring the comfort of offices in Houston. Louis Borget who established and operated the trading business was an autocratic manager, receiving excessive incentive payment for profitable performance. Between 1984 - 1986, Valhalla continued to report profits in the emerging oil trading industry. A call to Enron in Houston by Apple Bank would shatter the false sense of security regarding Valhalla. An ensuing investigation by Arthur Andersen, an accounting firm employed by Enron, failed to produce concrete evidence of misappropriation within Valhalla. Questionable practices were identified, but Enron failed to react appropriately to this information. CEO Lay was able to persuade key executives within Enron and the board of directors to keep running Valhalla offices, with minor changes in personnel. Mick Seidl, unhappy with Lay’s influence over the board, called Mike Muckelroy to investigate Valhalla. Muckelroy’s investigation would become the tipping point regarding Valhalla. With a secret set of books discovered, fraudulent trading entities identified and $1 billion...
Words: 5014 - Pages: 21
...Enron Corporation was established in 1985 by Ken Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and Internorth, it has more than 20,000 employees and it's one of the seven largest electricity, natural gas company. Before it went to bankruptcy, Enron claimed revenues of almost $101 billion in 2000, placed Enron at sixth on the Fortune Global 500, it also named "America's most innovative company" for the past six years(1996-2001). In 10/22/2001, The "street.com website pronounced a message revealed the complex financial transaction between Enron and Osprey Co., through Osprey, Enron debited 340 billion dollars"○1 which never appeared in the financial statement. At the same time, SEC began to investigate Enron, thus, the Enron's accounting scandal finally above the water. The first person who became the whistleblower disclosure Enron's financial fraud was Watkins and Cooper, although the CFO asked cooper to postpone her investigation, Cooper still doing her audit to alert the board about the financial statement problems, at the meantime, Watkins outlined the problems in a memo to Ken Lay, "but by the time Watkins and Cooper blew the whistle, much damage had already been done and the shareholders and employees were the ultimate losers."○2 Whistleblower program is very important to minimum a corporation's hazardous activities, but the blower often face some awkward situations, such as fear of the manager's retaliation, fear to be treat as a betrayer by the workmates, unwilling to be...
Words: 982 - Pages: 4
...Running head: Enron Annual Analysis Analysis of Enron Principles of Management Abstract Enron Creditors Recovery Corporation was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy in late 2001, Enron employed around 21,000 people (McLean & Elkind, 2003) and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of $111 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years(Fortune, 2000, pg.45-50). It achieved infamy at the end of 2001, when it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained mostly by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The following is the 2000 annual report analysis that talks about the ethics, corporate responsibilty, organizational policies and applicable theories. ethics According to the 2000 annual report, the company values are as follows. “We have an obligation to communicate, take the time to talk to one another and listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people”(Enron, 2000, pg.55). The company had a good ethical philosophy of communication. Still if employees would communicated from the beginning some corrections would have been made and possibly the company would stills stand today. “We treat others as would like to be treated ourselves...
Words: 1044 - Pages: 5
...How did the corporate culture of Enron contribute to its bankruptcy? The corporate Culture at Enron could have contributed to its bankruptcy in many ways. Its corporate culture supported unethical behavior without question for as long as the behavior resulted in monetary gain for the company. It was describe as having a culture of arrogance that led people to believe that they could handle increasingly greater risk without encountering any danger. Its culture did little to promote the values of respect and integrity it instead rewarded ‘innovation’ and punished employees deemed week. The performance evaluation process for employees that was dubbed “rank and yank” utilized peer evaluations, and each of the company’s divisions was forced to fire the lowest ranking employees. This created cut-throat competition not only against Enron’s external competitors but also within the organization. It pitched employees against each other. The internal rivalry created in turn contributed to less communication between operations for fears of being fired. The “survival for the fittest” atmosphere reached the point where illegal activity was deemed necessary to stay on top of the game. Enron’s compensation plans also seemed less concerned with generating profits for shareholders than with enriching officer wealth. Its culture encouraged flaunting the rules and even breaking them. Each Enron division and business unit was kept separate from the others and as a result very few people in the...
Words: 885 - Pages: 4
...The Enron Collapse Enron, a high profile organization which ranked as the seventh largest company in the United States during the 1990’s consisted of approximately 25,000 employees worldwide and held revenues in the tune of over 100 billion dollars in 2000. Enron controlled about one quarter of the gas companies in the United States and also expanded into Myriad energy products during its years of operation. The company traded hundreds of products throughout the wider Continentals including South America, Asia, Europe, Australia and also the United States, and was considered to be very successful with their trading strategies. An excerpt from an article in the CRS Report for Congress entitled The Enron Collapse: An Overview of Financial Issues, Mark Jickling, (February 4, 2002), states that “the firm was widely regarded as one of the most innovative, fast growing, and best managed businesses in the United States.” However, despite all of Enron’s fame and glory, the company crumbled as a result of bad management and unethical practices. According to Donaldson & Werhane (2008), “The controls as designed were not rigorous enough and their implication and oversight was inadequate at both Management and Board levels,” (p. 313). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Enron Collapse and explain how the virtuous manager would have responded to working for Enron. Also being discussed is what the virtuous manager is expected to do if confronted with these decisions. Unfolding...
Words: 1955 - Pages: 8
...THE COLLAPSE OF ENRON & THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SARBANES OXLEY ACT BY TREVOR GARRETT 02/25/2011 Abstract Enron Corporation was one of the largest energy trading, natural gas and Utilities Company in the world that was based in Huston, Texas. The downfall of Enron is one of the most infamous and shocking events in the financial world, and its reverberations were felt around the globe. Prior to its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the leading companies in the U.S and considered among top 10 admired corporations and most desired places to work at. Its revenues made up US $139 to $184 billion, assets equaled $62 to $82 billion, and the number of employees reached more than 30,000 people in 20 countries around the world. While on the surface it seemed like the perfect Corporation, internally it had highly decentralized financial control and decision-making structure, which made it practically impossible to get coherent and clear view on corporations' activities and operations. Enron manipulated its books and assets to help it report steady profit growth to Stock Exchanges and Credit-rating agencies. Investors generally are not willing to pay as much for the stock of a volatile trading operation, and this gave rise to manipulations. This paper briefly describes the legal and ethical breaches by Enron, the key factors and events that led to its collapse and the passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act as a consequence of such a catastrophe. The paper also discusses the...
Words: 3098 - Pages: 13
...Running Head: ENRON CORPORATION Enron Corporation July 20, 2011 Based in Houston, Texas, Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities and service company. Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Enron employed approximately 22,000 employees and was one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas communications, and pulp and paper companies before its demise in late 2001. For six consecutive years, Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company". At the end of 2001, it was discovered that Enron’s financial accounting reports had been falsified and the company had filed for bankruptcy. This substantial act was known as the "Enron scandal". The Enron scandal also lead to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002 to enforce firmer standards for management and accounting firms. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption. Describe how Enron could have been structured differently to avoid such activities. Enron withheld essential financial and accounting information from the public and its shareholders. By law Enron was required to disclose their company financial dealings. Enron’s shareholders should have been informed about their financial and accounting transaction. Several shareholders were employees who had invested their life savings into this company. Instead of promoting within the...
Words: 1010 - Pages: 5
...INTERNAL AUDITING MOVIE REVIEW: Enron Movie: The Smartest Guy in the Room Tutor: Ms. Bewry March 29, 2014 Ashley Johnson-Blake ID #100426 Review Questions 1. Identify at least five (5) control issues in the movie using the Committee of Sponsoring Organization of the Treadway Commission (COSO) framework as a guide. According to COSO, the five control issues are concerned with the control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication and monitoring. Based on the documentary several control issues were observed. They were: * During the Enron oil scandal aka the Valhalla scandal there was significant misappropriation of monies. In this particular situation instead of reducing risk lay encouraged traders to keep gambling more. Traders gambled away all of Enron’s reserves and this was covered up by Muckleroy who was able to bluff the market by acting quickly. * Ken Lay didn’t listen to auditors’ reports that the two rogue traders should be fired, this demonstrated one angle of lack of a good management style and monitoring. Instead lay read the report and read his budget and estimated how much the rogue executives made and if they were fired what he could lose. With all of this in mind lay did not fire the executives and had been described as a guy that puts earnings before scruples rather than reacting to the dishonesty in front of him. * Ken Lay as CEO of Enron made the statement that he is not responsible for things he didn’t...
Words: 1243 - Pages: 5
...Michael C. Knapp Cases in Auditing , 2003 Ethics case enron corporation John and Mary Andersen immigrated to the United States from their native Nor-way in 1881. The young couple made their way to the small farming community of Piano, Illinois, some 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. Over the pre-vious few decades, hundreds of Norwegian families had settled in Piano and sur-rounding communities. In fact, the aptly named Norway, Illinois, was located just a few miles away from the couple's new hometown. In 1885, Arthur Edward An-dersen was born. From an early age, the Andersens' son had a fascination with numbers. Little did his parents realize that Arthur's interest in numbers would become the driving force in his life. Less than one century after he was born, an accounting firm bearing Arthur Andersen's name would become the world's largest professional services organization with more than 1,000 partners and op-erations in dozens of countries scattered across the globe. think straight, talk straight Discipline, honesty, and a strong work ethic were three key traits that John and Mary Andersen instilled in their son. The Andersens also constantly impressed upon him the importance of obtaining an education. Unfortunately, Arthur's par-ents did not survive to help him achieve that goal. Orphaned by the time he was a young teenager, Andersen was forced to take a full-time job as a mail clerk and attend night classes to work his way through high school...
Words: 11288 - Pages: 46
...Summary Enron Corporation is an energy trading, natural gas, and electric utilities company based in Houston, Texas. Formed in 1931, it was originally known as Northern Natural Gas Company. In 1985, Enron was formed by Kenneth Lay after the merger of Houston natural Gas Company and Inter North (Nebraska Pipeline Company). Fortune magazine named Enron “America’s most innovative company for 6 consecutive years. But all that came crashing down in a very bad scandal better known as the Enron Scandal, and it also led to the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. Enron’s stock price went down to pennies from over $90. It is ever the most famous company in the world, but it also is one of companies which fell down too fast. The aim of this paper is to analyze how and why the Enron Scandal took place, how the energy giant suddenly collapsed and eventually filed for bankruptcy. I. Special Purpose Entities Enron created partnerships within their own organization which led to them creating new financial instruments, called SPE’s which was used to falsify the accounting. Enron used SPE’s such as LJM Cayman LP, LJM2 Co-Investment LP, and Raptor vehicles, which is designed in part to hedge an Enron investment in a bankrupt broadband company Rhythm NetConnections, to “increase leverage and ROA without having to report debt on its balance sheet” (Journal of Accountancy, 2002). Enron entered into a series of transactions...
Words: 1936 - Pages: 8
...Troubles Ethics Case on pp. 107–113 (Ch. 2) of the text. Answer questions 1, 3, and 4 on p. 113 in 200 to 300 words. When responding to question 3, focus solely on the Enron case. 1. What did Arthur Andersen contribute to the Enron disaster? Arthur Andersen (AA) did not advise the Enron Audit Committee that Enron’s policies and internal control were not adequate to protect the shareholders’ interests even though AA had assumed Enron’s internal audit function (Brooks, 2007, 110). As their accountants they should have had and were supposed to have had reviewed the company's financial condition and truthfully report on that condition. This would have allowed the investors as well as the public to estimate and know about the risk of trusting Enron and investing in the company. They down played the risk which caused their actions to become illegal. Arthur Anderson helped Enron deceive investors and the public by helping the company keep substantial information private. Many people trusted Arthur Anderson, they were seen as being a respectfully and trustworthy accounting firm; they also believed that they were experts in their work which helped legitimized Enron and gave its financial reports and statement credibility that it may not otherwise have had. AA did not establish nor enforce internal controls for Enron, by doing some fraud would and could have been detected, charges and jail time would have been avoided, and the auditing of papers to cover up deficiencies would not...
Words: 900 - Pages: 4
...Enron Corporation (former NYSE ticker symbol ENE) was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,000 staff and was one of the world's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion during 2000.[1] Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001, it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by an institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known since as the Enron scandal. Enron has since become a well-known example of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The scandal also brought into question the accounting practices and activities of many corporations in the United States and was a factor in the creation of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. The scandal also affected the greater business world by causing the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen accounting company.[2] Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York during late 2001 and selected Weil, Gotshal & Manges as its bankruptcy counsel. It ended its bankruptcy during November 2004, pursuant to a court-approved plan of reorganization, after one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in U.S. history. A new board of directors changed the name of Enron to Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., and emphasized...
Words: 2204 - Pages: 9
...Case: The Fall of Enron 1. Why was Enron such an admired company prior to 2000? What innovation do they bring to the table? Be specific and support your statement with concrete information. Enron was an admired company prior to 2000 because at that time it surfaced as a frontrunner in the deregulated energy market, making it possible to sell energy at higher prices, thus significantly increasing its revenue. The company, through efficient management team, has built leading businesses in energy trading and international energy asset construction. The company has managed to maintain high return from its investments through ideal placement of resources by creating long term and fixed price contracts with clients that guaranteed stable gas prices for the duration of the contract, and managing the risk to commitment ratio. The company has further encouraged employees to move around the organization freely to positions where they feel they can add value and generate additional revenue. The company sought to rapidly obtain physical capacity in order to guarantee delivery to customers. This approach enabled Enron to provide customers with contracts that would allow for them to manage their business risks. Enron successfully used the energy-trading model to develop electric power. It acquired electric power generation, transmission, and distribution, and distribution expertise by buying Portland General Electric. In an attempt to achieve further growth, Enron pursued a diversification...
Words: 1146 - Pages: 5
...Enron Corporation: THE RISE AND FALL; ACCOUNTING SCANDAL Submitted To: Professor Bill Bristol Submitted By: Kenneth Rhodes, Jr. Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY) TABLE OF CONTENTS I. ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................2 II. purpose and service....................................................................................................3 III. HistorY............................................................................................................................3-5 IV. The Downfall..............................................................................................................5-6 V. Accounting Scandal................................................................................................6-7 VI. Accounting Practices...........................................................................................7-8 VII. Files’ for Bankruptcy.............................................................................................9 VIII. Auditing.....................................................................................................................9-10 IX. Conclusion: THE AFTERMATH..........................................................................10-11 XI. BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................12 I. ABSTRACT ...
Words: 2887 - Pages: 12
...Auditing 1/26/15 Enron Enron began as Northern Natural Gas in 1932. In 1979 the company reorganized and became InterNorth. InterNorth was in the business of creating energy products such as natural gas and plastics. Later InterNorth merged into what was known as Enron with the new CEO Kenneth Lay running the show. He then began moving the headquarters to Houston, where they began selling off assets to limit their losses initially. The misleading financial accounts began when Jeffrey Skilling wanting to hide their losses. He and Andrew Fastow used special purpose entities to off load liabilities to those company to keep their main business looking as if they were profiting. Which intern made them look as though their business is successful and made their stocks increase because investors saw that the business was profiting not failing. A way that they were able to show the company as profitable was transferring debits and losses to offshore businesses that made it look as though on the books they were profiting and to make those unprofitable parts of the company disappear into an offshore business. To hide their losses in the trading business Skilling used mark-to-market accounting. Mark-to-market accounting is used in the security business but what Skilling did was use it for everyday business. Doing this let them write out what they thought a certain venture would be making in the future, without having to have actually made a dime. This let Enron show on the books that...
Words: 2227 - Pages: 9
