...“The HealthSouth Scandal of 2003” SERRAON, ABIGAIL E. Accountancy 4Y2-1 ENGR. ANTHONIO CHAN March, 2016 INTRODUCTION Embezzlement, misappropriation, cheating or stealing is a form of fraudulent act done with an organization. There are television and newspaper stories nearly every day about all kinds of corporate schemes and scams. Behind every fraud is a person or a group of people who has taken what is not theirs to take. Some of those people intended to steal they just never thought they would get caught. Others were pulled into the original crime or some aspect of the cover-up and before they knew it they were labeled a co-conspirator. This study will examine the people behind the much publicized fraud scheme at HealthSouth. Some did not set out to commit white-collar crime but found themselves as defendants in criminal trials for fraud. In the HealthSouth case in observation, real life examples of people who were "just doing their job" but at some point crossed the line from law-abiding citizens to law-breaking villains. Seemingly small compromises in ethics and morality led to a full-scale commitment to fraud. Finally, we will conclude that nobody sets out in their career to end up in prison cleaning toilets and on the front page of the Wall Street Journal after they are arrested for fraud. At some point, though, many end up that way. A. Background of the Study The study all about the recent accounting scandal that were reported : “The HealthSouth Scandal...
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...The five basic types of financial statement fraud are ("Detecting financial fraud," 2011): -Fictitious sales -Improper expense recognition -Incorrect asset valuation -Hidden Liabilities -Unsuitable disclosures If any of these are committed it can have drastic effects on a company’s stock price. This makes it attractive for CEO’s who are paid in stock to commit fraud. The CEO’s job is to look out for the best interest of its companies stockholders. But by giving CEO’s stock options it encourages them to look towards the next quarter rather than the long-term. For example Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook received a base salary of $900,000 in 2011, but due to stock options he will receive 376.2 million dollars in shares (Satariano, 2012). Now as the company grows those stock options will increase drastically, making his yearly salary look like chump change. This is what encourages CEO’s to commit financial fraud by altering the company’s books to drive the stock price up, which drives his pay up. In 2002 the CEO of HealthSouth sold $100 million dollars in stock just days before the company posted a huge loss. HealthSouth over the course of seven years beginning in 1996 overstated their income by 2.7 Billion dollars ("Sec charges healthsouth," 2003). The CEO was accused of having senior accountants inflate the earnings of its facilities in order to drive up the company’s value. In addition they also misreported the sale of technology to a related party resulting in 29 million...
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...HealthSouth Corporation Case Study Managerial Communication Dr. Ben Busbee Dwight Frazier December 12, 2013 A. Executive Summary: The paper highlights the case analysis on one of the big financial fraud which occurred from 1986-2003. The case of HealthSouth is based on fraud, greed and corporate governance. The HealthSouth case shows that unethical management cannot succeed; sooner or later the truth comes out. The case highlights many key points and the major reason for the fraud was the result of failures of various standard mechanisms of control including the external auditors, the underwriters, and the board of directors, the financial market regulators and the analysts. HealthSouth was one of the country's largest providers of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging, and rehabilitation services, operating over 1,800 locations and reporting revenues of $4 billion. The company's management improperly accounted for some $2.7 billion of assets and earnings. Seventeen HealthSouth executives agreed to plead guilty to various charges in connection with this massive accounting fraud. B. Statement of the Problem: Thus, in the HealthSouth case, the research shows that it was close to the real life examples of the people who were “just employed”; however at the same time their transformation from the line of law-abiding citizens towards the law-breaking villains. Apparently the small compromises in morality and ethics led towards the greater compromises and as a result...
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...HealthSouth: The Scrushy Way Vonetta M. Henderson Northcentral University Introduction The Enron and Tyco scandals brought visibility to corporate scandals. The magnitude of these scandals resulted in the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act in 2002. Richard M. Scrushy and HealthSouth Corporation were the first CEO and company to be indicted under the SOX Act. HealthSouth was charged with filing false financial statements with the SEC to hid poor financial conditions from Wall Street. An audit conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that HealthSouth overstated its cumulative earnings between $3.8 billion to $4.6 billion (Weld, Bergevin, & Magrath, 2004). Although Scrushy was charged with 85 counts, he pled not-guilty, claiming that he was unaware of the fraudulent activities that had occurred. Scrushy was later exonerated as the investigation into the company found no evidence that Scrushy orchestrated or participated in any financial wrongdoings. Five financial executives and 10 other company officials pled guilty to a variety of charges. Background Richard M. Scrushy founded Amcare, Inc. in 1984. The company opened its first facility in Little Rock, Arkansas and one year later opened a facility in Birmingham and changed its name to HealthSouth Rehabilitation Corporation (HRC). In 1986, HRC went public with its initial public offering (IPO) on the NASDAQ stock exchange (HealthSouth Corporation, 2010). In 1988, HRC moved to...
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...crime does pay – in the short term. It’s easy to rationalize that what one does is not a crime “if it hurts no one,” or if one is doing amazing amounts of charity work. Richard M. Scrushy is a case in point – he seemed to have it all, the all-American success story, yet dishonesty, and unethical practices, when engaged in hurt everyone – for a long time. As this author has explored through this Business Ethics class, unethical behavior looks only at the short-term, what can one get now? The Carpenter taught, regarding those who did not follow wisdom, that they were “like unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:26-27, King James Version). The character of the individual who cheats, or takes advantage of others, gets bent out of shape and distorted, until it is no longer strong enough to provide a sure foundation, and without that they fall and they hurt themselves and those around them. Impact on Stakeholders In the house that Scrushy built, this author identifies several stakeholders impacted by the dishonesty, including: Richard Scrushy, his management team, his board of directors, his employees, the patients of HealthSouth, and the U.S. Government. This author will discuss the contributions and ramifications of the actions, or inactions of each. Richard Scrushy Richard Scrushy was a self-made man, a high school...
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...use this as a reference. Table of Contents 1. Assignment cover sheet p. 0 2. Title page: HealthSouth and the Scrushy Way p. 1 3. Table of Contents p. 2 4. Introduction p. 3 5. Government Subsidies p. 3 6. Signs of Corruption p. 4 7. Ethical issues of HealthSouth p. 5 8. Management of HealthSouth p. 5 9. Intimidation and Cooperation p. 6 10. Culture of Corruption p. 7 11. Lavish Lifestyle and Philanthropy p. 8 12. Impact on Stakeholders p. 9 13. Charges p. 10 14. Outcome and Fairness of Punishment p. 10 15. Conclusion p. 12 16. References p. 13 HealthSouth and the Scrushy Way Richard Scrushy overcame challenging teenage years, dropping out of high school and later obtaining his GED to become one of the most successful executives in the United States. Scrushy did so by subsequently getting his respiratory therapist certification and opening his own rehabilitation center, an all-in-one medical facility that led many to copy his idea. Scrushy founded HealthSouth in 1996 using $1 million in seed capital and turned it into a hugely successful medical services empire worth over $4 billion at its prime (Haddad, Weintraub, & Grow, 2003). HealthSouth had become the largest provider of outpatient surgery, rehabilitation, and diagnostic and imaging services as well...
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...INTRODUCTION…….…………………………………………………………………. 4 B.) Defining the Ethical Issues Involved with HealthSouth…………………………………. 5 1.) HealthSouth Founder and CEO Richard Marin Scrushy………...………………. 5 a.) Trailer Park to Charismatic Leader……………………………………. 5-7 b.) Leadership Tactics……………………………………………………….. 7 2.) Corporate Culture at HealthSouth………………………………………………... 8 c.) Following Directions for Failure……………………………………........ 9 d.) Faking corporate profits………………………………………………… 10 C.) The Impact on Stakeholders…………………………………………………………….. 10 3.) Employees and Executives……………………………………………………... 10 e.) Many Lost Jobs as a result……………………………………………… 10 f.) Top Level Management Complacency.………………………………… 11 4.) Investors and HealthSouth Stock……………………………………………….. 11 5.) HealthSouth Patients and Customers….………………………………………... 11 D.) Outcome and Fairness of Punishment…………………………………………………... 12 6.) 2003 SEC Civil Law Suit against HealthSouth………………………………… 12 g.) Charges of Fraud………………………………………………………... 12 h.) Inflated Earnings on Financial Statements ...…………………………... 13 7.) Punishment: Does it fit the crime? ...................................................................... 13 i.) CEO Richard Marin Scrushy’s sentence...……..………………………. 14 j.) Other HealthSouth executives sentence ………………………......... 14-15 E.) Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………....
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...INTRODUCTION This paper discusses the HealthSouth Case including the activities and subsequent prosecution of its CEO, Richard Scrushy. “During the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, federal prosecutors argued that Scrushy must have known something was amiss with HealthSouth’s financial statements since there was a discrepancy between the company’s financial and nonfinancial performance.” Over a ten-year period from 1987 to 1997, HealthSouth enjoyed above–average growth at a rate of 31 percent per year. (Jennings, 2012, 2009, p. 183) This phenomenal growth was due, in part, to a series of mergers and acquisitions let by the efforts of the company’s CEO, Richard Scrushy who ran the company with an iron fist and has at least one recorded conversation directing a CFO to fix the numbers over time. The fraud lasted for seven years and totaled approximately $2.7 billion. Mr. Scrushy denied knowing anything about the fraud, claimed it was all done by the people around him and was ultimately found not guilty of the fraud at HealthSouth but was convicted on bribery and corruption charges. Mr. Scrushy was ordered to pay $2.9 billion in restitution in a civil suit. “From at least 1996 until 2002, HealthSouth senior management perpetrated a financial statement fraud primarily through the use of nonstandard journal entries.” (Carmichael, 2010, p. 64) “Scrushy, once a high school dropout, worked as a gas station attendant and a bricklayer before retuning (sic)...
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...Running header: HEALTHSOUTH: THE SCRUSHY WAY 1 Business Ethics HealthSouth: The Scrushy way—Activity 8 Melinda S. Whitman Dr. Jennifer Scott Northcentral University May 19, 2013 HEALTHSOUTH: THE SCRUSHY WAY 2 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….. 3 Richard Scrushy Represented the American Dream…………………………………… 3 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002…………………………………………. 4 What caused the demise of HealthSouth?...……………………………………. 5 Characteristics of Unethical CEOs……………………………………………………… 6 Was Richard Scrushy narcissistic?.……………………………………………………. 7 Impact on Stakeholders………………………………………………………………… 8 Outcome and Fairness of Punishment…………………………………………………. 9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………... 10 References……………………………………………………………………………… 12 HEALTHSOUTH: THE SCRUSHY WAY 3 Introduction For at least 20 years, HealthSouth represented a new concept in health care. Its founder, Richard Scrushy was the embodiment of the American dream. His rise was meteoric, yet ultimately the empire he created collapsed due to fraud of his creation. Richard Scrushy Represented the American Dream Richard Scrushy came from humble beginnings...
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...| #8| || Faculty Use Only TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Abstract --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 & 6 The role of Auditors at HealthSouth ---------------------------------------- 7 & 8 SEC Investigation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------9&10 Impact on Stakeholders ---------------------------------------11, 12, 13 & 14 Outcome and Fairness In Punishment ---------------------------------------- 15, 16 & 17 Conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18 References-------------------------------------------------------------------------------19, 20 & 21 ABSTRACT This paper will investigate the financial reporting scandals of the past decade at HealthSouth and the resulting U.S. legislative attempts to impose ethical behavior and control the incidence of new reporting problems via Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. This paper begins with a brief historical perspective followed by assertions of...
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...FROM GREAT TO GHASTLY: HOW TOXIC ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES POISON COMPANIES THE RISE AND FALL OF ENRON, WORLDCOM, HEALTHSOUTH, AND TYCO INTERNATIONAL David R. Lease, Norwich University Abstract This paper presents an analytical and comparative study of four recent corporate scandals involving organizations that had previously been recognized as both ethically and organizationally sound. Based on these case studies, the following issues are discussed: (1) The role of leader behavior and organizational/leadership styles in shaping the corporate organizational culture of an organization, and (2) The extent to which this culture renders the organization and its members (including the top executives) prone to ethical misbehavior. The four companies selected for this case analysis are: Enron Corporation, WorldCom, Inc., Tyco International, Ltd., and HealthSouth Corporation. Each case is considered individually. The basic elements in the scandal are outlined and the principal aspects of each organization’s corporate culture discussed, with special emphasis on the influence of leadership styles and leadership behavior/practices on organizational culture. The four cases are then compared and contrasted in the light of the existing evidence on the relation between corporate culture and ethical misbehavior. PRELUDE “We were doing something special. Magical. It wasn’t a job – it was a mission. We were changing the world. We were doing God’s work.” – Jeffrey Skilling, former Enron COO, President...
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...Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil law suit against HealthSouth Corporation and Richard M. Scrushy. The SEC charged that the company inflated their books by $1.9 billion since 1999 (SEC, 2003). The filing of these charges had a multiple impact on the stakeholders. The ethical dilemmas that caused the rise and fall of Richard M. Scrushy will be reviewed. Scrushy’s Beginnings Scrushy began his humble beginnings in Alabama. Watson (2003), biography of Scrushy reports he dropped out of high school and worked as a gas station attendant and later a bricklayer. He eventually returned back to school and earned his high school diploma. Later Scrushy enrolled at Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham. He did a year at Jefferson State and a year of clinical training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Scrushy graduated in 1974 as a certified respiratory therapist (Watson, 2003, p. 1). Once Scrushy graduated with the certification of a respiratory therapist, he began climbing the ladder. His accomplishments were as follows: * 1974 - Taught at University of Alabama Birmingham. * 1979 -1984 Vice President at LifeMark HealthCare Firm. * 1984-2003 Founded HealthSouth in Little Rock Alabama. The company began with the four colleagues from Lifemark and $50,000. Scrushy also became CEO and Chairman of HealthSouth. * 1985- Scrushy moved HealthSouth to Birmingham....
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...------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Faculty Use Only ------------------------------------------------- Layla: ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Paper- Health South: The Scrushy way Layla O. Mora Northcentral University MGT7109-8 Janis McFaul, PhD November 15, 2012 Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Fraudulent activities perfumed by HealthSouth 2. Impact on stakeholders a. Impact on internal employees b. Impact on shareholders c. Impact on government and other involved parties 3. Factors affected HealthSouth culture 4....
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...not detecting the material misstatements in the statements. As a result, both the US Government and the accounting profession needed to come up with a way to prevent these immense frauds from occurring in the future. As a response to these large frauds, in 2002, the US Government passed the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99(SAS No. 99) to improve investor confidence and the auditing function’s ability to detect material frauds. The intent of this thesis was to look at the fraudulent factors associated with several recent corporate frauds and compare them to the standards set by SAS No. 99. Through the analysis conducted, this thesis looks at the relationships between pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations made during the act of fraud. Table of Contents ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) 1 Statement of Auditing Standards Number 99 (SAS No. 99) 4 Parts of the Fraud Triangle 5 Types of Fraud 11 INSTANCES OF FRAUD 13 Enron Corporation 13 Adelphia Communications Corporation 17 AOL Time Warner, Inc. 20 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company 25 Global Crossing Limited 27 K-Mart 30 Tyco International, Ltd. 34 WorldCom 37 HealthSouth Corporation 41 CONCLUSION 45 Appendix: SOX Titles and Sections List 48 Works Cited 52 INTRODUCTION Between the years 1998 and 2002, the United States suffered a time in which...
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...WorldCom, established in 1983, whose CEO was Bernard Ebbers, was the second largest long distance phone company in the US after AT&T. It could be seen as a pride of America until it got into one of the biggest accounting scandals in the American history which finally led to its bankruptcy in 2002. On July 21st, 2012, WorldCom filed for bankruptcy, which was worth 103.9 billion USD and became the largest filing at its time. Its CEO, Bernard Ebbers, was found totally guilty and sentenced to 25-year imprisonment regarding the crime of stock and accounting fraud. Before WorldCom, the world had seen several cases of famous, or infamous, financial and accounting frauds, including Enron, Tyco, Aldelphia, Global Crossing and HealthSouth. Such cases, we can say, were quite complicated to trace, but WorldCom used a simple recipe to cook the book, which will be illustrated below. HOW DID WORLDCOM COOK ITS BOOKS? To understand the fraud occurring at WorldCom, we should basically understand the difference between operating and capital expenditures first, and then we would move on to the details on how the books were adjusted to cause problems. To begin with, what are operating and capital expenditures? Examples would be provided to clarify these notions in the simplest way. If company X spends $1000 on annual maintenance of the central server computer, the expenditure will be recorded as an operating income and posted to the Repairs & Maintenance Expense account, which consequently decrease...
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