...of a dividend the employees get more stock. Then all of a sudden one March morning all these millionaire managers wake up to discover they are not only now worth just a few hundred bucks, but that their jobs were disappearing. This situation was a reality for many WorldCom workers, because on that March morning America’s largest fraud at the time had been reported. WorldCom was a publicly traded corporation established in 1983 to provide Long Distance Discount Services (LDDS) (Internet Services, 2011). Through the acquisition of other businesses Worldcom became the world’s second largest telecommunication company. LDDS began by leasing a wide-area telecommunications service (WATS) line and resold time to other businesses (Internet Services, 2011). WATS is a form of fixed-rate long distance telecommunication service in which certain area codes, such 800, 888, or 877, are reserved for businesses and when customers call these numbers they are not charged for long-distance but rather the business is charged as a subscriber of the WATS service (Rouse, 2006). Beginning in 1988, LDDS began growing through the acquisition of other companies such as Telephone Management Corp., National Telecommunications, IDB WorldCom, and WilTel Network Services (Internet Services, 2011). In 1989, LDDS went public through the acquisition of Advantage Companies Inc....
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...371427 WorldCom, the United States second largest telecommunication company stunned the world by filing bankruptcy in July of 2002. The downfall of WorldCom did not just affect the employees, retailers, the government, but also the bankers. WorldCom was a multi-billion dollar telecommunications business that was founded in 1983. They started their business under the name ‘Long Distance Discount Services’ (LDDS) providing long distance telecommunication amenities. In 1985, Bernie Embers became the company’s CEO, in 1995; the company changed its name to WorldCom. Throughout the 1990’s, WorldCom increases its growth through series of successful acquisitions and mergers. Nevertheless in the late 1999, WorldCom’s performance begins to decrease in due to the upward of overcapacity, competition, and reduced demand for telecommunication services at the start of the economic recession and the result of the dot-com bubble downfall. All these burdens triggered WorldCom to become involved in accounting fraud and cook the books. WorldCom’s CFO Scoot Sullivan began the process of mismanaging as capital expenditure with what should have been normal expenses, therefore turning losses in profit, creating a camouflage that the company is carrying out well. Until June of 2002, things started to unravel and the company’s stock price plunged. Investigations were carried out and on June 25, WorldCom admits that it had inflated its earnings by $3.8 billion. After several investigations...
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...AVOIDING INVESTMENTS IN FRAUDULENT COMPANIES: THE WORLDCOM FRAUD Introduction The purpose of this report is to investigate and discuss the accounting fraud that occurred at WorldCom in order to recommend improved strategies to Berkshire Hathaway’s management for avoiding investments in companies with fraudulent financials. Accounting fraud is a crime committed by high level employees at an organization to manipulate the organization’s financial statements and intentionally disguise company performance. The fraud is committed without the knowledge of owners (shareholders and investors) to benefit the individuals perpetrating or committing the fraud and results in a negative impact on the owners. This report will give a brief background on WorldCom and the telecommunications industry, and then discuss the details of the WorldCom accounting fraud in order to provide relevant recommendations to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. for mitigating future losses due to investing in fraudulent companies. We expect management to become more knowledgeable regarding high fraud risk investments and therefore make better informed investment decisions. Recommendations to Berkshire Hathaway include improving current risk assessment procedures and enhancing investment policies. WorldCom and the Telecommunications Industry WorldCom was the leader of the telecommunications industry during the 1990’s; in 2000, WorldCom was the 25th largest company in the world (Anderson, 2013, p. 48). The...
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...Review Title of Article: The Accounting Fraud @ WorldCom: The Causes, The Characteristics, and The Consequences. Author: Javiriyah Ashraf (2011) Area: The main area of the study was focused on the different offices of WorldCom in United States of America. The core examination areas were Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Washington D.C. to know the causes of the fraud, how the different branches were linked in fraud and what were the main problems faced to the stakeholders after the fraud. Introduction: WorldCom was a provider of long distance phone services to businesses and residents. It started as a small company known as Long Distance Discount Services (“LDDS”) that grew to become the third largest telecommunications company in the United States due to the management of Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) Bernie Ebbers. It consisted of an employee base of 85,000 workers at its peak with a presence in more than 65 countries. Ebbers helped grow the small investment into a $30 billion revenue producing company characterized by sixty acquisitions of other telecomm businesses in less than a decade. From the outside, WorldCom appeared to be a strong leader of growth. In reality, the appearance was nothing more than a perception. On June 25, 2002, the company revealed that it had been involved in fraudulent reporting of its numbers by stating a $3 billion profit when in fact it was a half-a-billion dollar loss. After an investigation was conducted, a total of $11 billion in...
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...WorldCom: The Scandal that Shocked the Nation By: Eric Dixon FSAAC_624_OL2 November 23, 2011 Professor Stephen Oliner Table of Contents Executive Summary…………………………………………………………Page 2 Corporate Environment……………………………………………………...Page 4 Types of Fraud Committed.…………………………………………………Page 5 Board of Directors Responsibility…………………………………………...Page 6 Internal Auditors Responsibility…………………………………………….Page 7 Conflicts of Interest………………………………………………………….Page 7 Collusion…………………………………………………………………….Page 8 Complicity of Auditors and Investment bankers …………………………...Page 9 Sarbanes Oxley-Act……………………………………………………….....Page 9 Recommendations……………………………………………………………Page 10 Re-establishing WorldCom………………………………………………….Page 11 Glossary………………………………………………………………...……Page 12 Appendix…………………………………………………………………….Page 13 Web Site Resource Summary……………………………………………......Page 14 Executive Summary In the late 1990’s WorldCom was regarded as one of the largest long distance phone companies. WorldCom stormed and dominated the telecommunication industry by completing sixty-five significant mergers and acquisitions. These mergers put WorldCom in debt of $41 billion dollars, which the Board of Directors was unaware of. By obtaining these companies WorldCom made themselves a favorite on Wall Street and to numerous investment bankers. Management didn’t know the complications that would arise when trying to integrate several different billing systems. Chief Executive Officer Mr. Ebbers kept...
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...Running Head: WORLDCOM AND ETHICS IN ACCOUNTING 1 WorldCom and Ethics in Accounting Brian Bartram Professor Hogan Strayer University Accounting 557 11/05/2012 WORLDCOM AND ETHICS IN ACCOUNTING 2 There have been many corporate and ethical breeches over the years in financial record keeping but it is believed that the current business and regulatory environment is conducive to ethical behavior. Unfortunately, publically traded companies have been prone to the proverb “one bad apple spoils the barrel”. When unethical practices are exposed, of a publically traded company, the effects can be tremendous and affect every individual or entity that is tied to the organization. For ethical principles to apply to companies, it must be shown that they can be considered moral or ethically responsible institutions. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a US regulatory agency that has the authority to establish accounting standards for publically traded companies ("Quickmba financial accounting," 2010). When the SEC was established in 1934 there was no accounting standards issuing body. The SEC has encouraged the private sector to set the standards. In 1939, encouraged by the SEC, the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA) formed the Committee on Accounting Procedure (CAP) which dealt with accounting issues as they arose from 1939 to 1959...
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...frankly, this is a change that, in light of catastrophes like the collapse of WorldCom, was a long time coming. Introducing the reality of auditing standards mostly, auditors only bother paying attention to transactions that appear to be out of the norm (Glater, 2002). The tedious run of the mill activities of a business do not really get that much attention. However, if something seems off or out of the ordinary, an auditor should take a closer look. If an irregularity or discrepancy is found, then the auditor should make a judgment on whether or not to investigate further (Glater, 2002). Investigating smaller transactions can be costly and time consuming but there are certain guidelines an auditor should use to help make that determination. For example, one criterion would be if the business had an incentive for falsifying profits to the public, due to falling stock prices and other similar situations. Auditors are now utilizing computer software when it comes to some of their investigations. Access to computerized analysis of records on personal computers is causing standards to rise across the board because by using software to analyze the financial procedures, the cost on these investigations is not as high as in previous years, as less labor is involved (Hitzig, 2003). One of the major benefits of this technology in auditing is that it takes some of the guesswork out of the investigation...
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...ETHICS IN ACCOUNTING: THE WORLDCOM INC. SCANDAL Conf.univ.dr. Lucian Cernuşca “Aurel Vlaicu” University, Arad, str. Piaţa Sporturilor, nr. 10, bl. 25, apt. 7, 310167 Arad, Phone: 0730468534, luciancernusca@gmail.com What is ethics? What does ethics have to do with accounting? How does a scandal affect the business environment and the society? This article will explain just those questions by analyzing a “famous” fraud scandal: WorldCom Inc. The article discusses the chronology of events that lead to the WorldCom Inc. collapse and explains how the figures were manipulated for the owners’ interest and what the accounting scam was. The article ends with the consequences of the scandal and what the effects were on the society and business environment in general. JEL Classification: M4 Accounting and Auditing Key words: ethics, accounting, bankruptcy, WorldCom Inc., expenses. What is ethics? Why ethics in accounting? Ethical values are the foundations on which a civilized society is based on. Without them, the civilization collapses. In business, the purpose of ethics is to direct business men and women to abide by a code of conduct that facilitates public confidence in their product and services. In the accounting field, professional accounting organizations recognize the accounting profession’s responsibility to provide ethical guidelines to its members. Ethics must and should be taught. People are not born with the desire to be ethical or be concerned with...
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...Organizational Leadership LDR 531 Group Number: SC09MBA10 G. Edward McCullough, M.A. March 25, 2010 Examining a Business Failure: WorldCom Why do businesses fail? Most business corporations experience company failure because of their lack of organizational leadership and unethical practices, which can consist of fraud, conspiracy, falsifying documents, and embezzlement. An example of a business failure is most recognized by the WorldCom (2002) bankruptcy scandal. Many organizational behavior (OB) theories as it relates to leadership, management, and organizational structure can give in site to explain the company’s failure. Most blame for the WorldCom scandal was placed in its founder and CEO Bernard Ebbers due to his unruly managerial functions (planning, organizing, leading and controlling) that he practiced during his time at WorldCom. WorldCom was known as a telecommunication giant, established from nothing in 1983 to become the biggest accounting scandal in United States (U.S.) history in 2002. According to Jones Jonesington (2007) says, “In 1998, the telecommunications industry began to slow down and WorldCom’s stock was declining which gave CEO Bernard Ebbers increased pressure from banks to cover margin calls on his WorldCom stock that was used to finance his other businesses endeavors (timber, yachting etc.).”(Jonesington, J., 2007) WorldCom took another big hit in 2000 when it was forced to abandon its merger with Sprint, says Jonesington. (Jonesington, J., 2007) ...
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...this paper will present an examination of the business failure of WorldCom Incorporated and also compare and contrast the leadership management and organizational structures and failures. Examining Business Failure 2 Introduction WorldCom was the second largest long distance provider and on July 19, 2002 filed the largest bankruptcy ever in U.S. history with its $41 billion dollar debt load, and more than $107 billion dollars in assets. In 1999 WorldCom’s profits began to decrease when WorldCom reduced budgets on telecom services and equipment. The former CEO of WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers, submitted his resignation from his position. Being CEO, he was the leader of WorldCom, and as such, should help an employee feel supported and safe enough to discuss openly or acknowledge the problem he or she is responsible for. When he resigned from the company, it raised questions because Ebbers had about $366 million dollars in personal loans from the company. Upon the revealing of his resignation to the employees, they were alarmed that something important was happening within the company, but had not yet been exposed. Bernie Ebbers started out in the telecommunications industry in 1983 providing long distance services in Jackson, Mississippi at a company formally known as LDDS. Over the years, the company grew through a series of business deals. In 1995, the name of the company was changed from LDDS to WorldCom. At the time, MCI was the second long distance provider and AT&T...
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...WorldCom history The history of WorldCom Company dates back in 1983 which started as a partnership between a former basketball coach Bernard Ebbers. This company was established at Mississippi as a coffee shop, which later developed to long distance Telephone Company. The company’s name initially was Long Distance Discount Service whose operations began on 1984. After several years in operation, the company became public in August 1989 with Bernard Ebbers as the company’s CEO (Moberg 4). Over the years, the company developed through mergers and acquisitions and becomes public in the year 1989. The notable merge which enabled the company to go public was the merger with the advantage companies Inc. This led to changing of the name from just LDDS to LDDS WorldCom in 1995 and to just WorldCom a year later (Moberg 4). In 1993, the company acquires long distance providers in the name of Resurgence Communications Group and Metromedia communications. This made history as the fourth largest long distance communication firm in United States. There were also several other mergers and acquisitions such as with IDB in 1994, WilTel in 1995, MFS communications in 1996, and the greatest merger which involved MCI communications. In 1998, WorldCom completed the merger with MCI at a cost estimated to be $40 billion. This was viewed as the greatest merger after brooks fiber properties and CompuServe which were valued at $ 1.2 and $ 1.3 billion respectively (Moberg 6). Another notable aspect...
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...will address five aspects of the corporate world and the ethical breaches that have been made in the last few years. The company that we will look at for examples is WorldCom. WorldCom was one of the companies that led to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The five questions that we will address in this paper are: 1. Is current business and regulatory environment more conducive to ethical behavior? 2. What impact was done to WorldCom because of the accounting ethical breach? 3. How was WorldCom caught and how they failed to be ethical? 4. What accounts were impacted and the resulting impact on operations? 5. What measures could have been taken to prevent this breach? The first thing that we will do is to describe how WorldCom came to be one the biggest companies in the telecommunications industry. WorldCom began in 1983 in Clinton, Mississippi as a long distance company called Long Distance Discount Services. As a result of several mergers that began in 1985 after the board elected Bernie Ebbers as the company CEO, the company grew by leaps and bounds. On November 4, 1997, WorldCom and MCI Communications announced their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom, making it the largest corporate merger of U.S. history. On October 5, 1999, Sprint Corporation and MCI WorldCom announced a $129 billion merger agreement between the two companies. This deal did not finalize because of opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European...
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...Worldcom Fraud Investigation Use the Fraud Triangle and Fraud Scale to critically analyse the actions of Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan during the WorldCom saga/ What does your analysis suggest? Dennis Greer’s fraud triangle is a key framework in analysing the ‘factors that cause someone to commit occupational fraud’ (ACFE-The Fraud Triangle, Association of Certified Fraud, Examiners Available from:http://www.acfe.com/fraud-triangle.aspx [January 2014]). The three elements that make up the model are perceived pressure, perceived opportunity and rationalisation. In reference to the events of WorldCom, which has been labelled to date, ‘one of the biggest accounting scandals in history’ (CNN Money- WorldCom’s Financial Bomb, Available from:http://money.cnn.com/2002/06/25/news/worldcom/. [June 2002]) the initial pressures that were the driving force behind the actions of CEO, Bernie Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan are quite vast. Firstly Ebbers, was faced with the managerial strain of financial pressure on management due to the decline in the economic environment and the high expectations of Wall Street. As a result, he was aware that the key to growth was in acquisition and mergers, which required an illusion of a solid investment portfolio and therefore ‘a heavy dependence on the performance of WorldCom shares’ (Forbes- Bernie Ebbers Guilty, Available from: http:// www.forbes.com/2005/03/15/cx_da_0315ebbersguilty). In addition, Ebbers was fuelled...
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...WORLDCOM CASE ANALYSIS The WorldCom case is another example of large corporation failures where individuals in the firm failed to act in a morally correct way. Bernard Ebbers, the CEO and Scott Sullivan, the CFO, of the corporation should have been aware of the accounting processes being used in his firm (and undoubtedly he was aware) and should have taken steps to prevent others test for ethics. Authur Anderson also missed opportunities where he could have disclosed the fraud. Cynthia Cooper and her team where the first people who uncovered the major fraud that was taking place at WorldCom. Accountants at WorldCom capitalized expenses in blatant violation of generally accepted accounting principles under the pressure from above management to maintain income growth. This started when WorldCom and other telecommunication firms faced reduced demand as the boom ended and the economy entered a recession. The revenues fell but the debt remained. The profit market value of the company also decreased. Fraud arose through the accounting department and secondly the company inflated revenues with fraudulent accounting entries from corporate unallocated revenue accountants. WorldCom reduced the amount of money held in reserves by $2.8 billion. They then moved the money into revenue line of its financial statements and then classified operating as their long term capital investments and consequently turned their losses into profits. They also made the assets appear more valuable. Revenue...
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...Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative University of New Mexico http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu WorldCom’s Bankruptcy Crisis INTRODUCTION The story of WorldCom began in 1983 when businessmen Murray Waldron and William Rector sketched out a plan to create a long-distance telephone service provider on a napkin in a coffee shop in Hattiesburg, Miss. Their new company, Long Distance Discount Service (LDDS), began operating as a long distance reseller in 1984. Early investor Bernard Ebbers was named CEO the following year. Through acquisitions and mergers, LDDS grew quickly over the next 15 years. The company changed its name to WorldCom, achieved a worldwide presence, acquired telecommunications giant MCI, and eventually expanded beyond long distance service to offer the whole range of telecommunications services. WorldCom became the second-largest long-distance telephone company in America, and the firm seemed poised to become one of the largest telecommunications corporations in the world. Instead, it became the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history at the time and another name on a long list of those disgraced by the accounting scandals of the early 21st century. ACCOUNTING FRAUD AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Unfortunately for thousands of employees and shareholders, WorldCom used questionable accounting practices and improperly recorded $3.8 billion in capital expenditures, which boosted cash flows and profit over all four quarters in 2001 as well as the first quarter of 2002. This disguised...
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