Case Study : Cendant Corporation, One Of The World's Largest Hotel And Real Estate Franchises

The Enron and WorldCom scandals were arguably the incidents that permanently changed the procedures for accounting controls. In response to these incidents, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was passed. Once the knowledge of these scandals was made public, a number of subsequent accounting scandals were discovered in public companies such as Tyco International, HealthSouth, and American Insurance Group. In addition, a then-employee-owned company, Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, Inc. (dba PBS&J, now known as “Atkins North America, Inc.”), was also hit by a similar accounting scandal. Henceforth, a case study of PBS&J is presented where we will examine the fraudulent transactions that

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

Between the years 2000 and 2002 there were over a dozen corporate scandals involving unethical corporate governance practices. The allegations ranged from faulty revenue reporting and falsifying financial records, to the shredding and destruction of financial documents (Patsuris, 2002). Most notably, are the cases involving Enron and Arthur Andersen. The allegations of the Enron scandal went public in October 2001. They included, hiding debt and boosting profits to the tune of more than one billion dollars. They were also accused of bribing foreign governments to win contacts and manipulating both the California and Texas power markets (Patsuris, 2002). Following these allegations, Arthur Andersen was investigated for, allegedly,

At the turn of the turn of the twenty-first century, a tide of corruption scandals involving reporting and accounting fraud with major US publicly-traded corporations generated a crisis of confidence in US financial markets. Major, apparently prosperous, companies like WorldCom, Sunbeam, Adelphia, and the infamous Enron engaged in accounting fraud of massive proportions to cover financial losses. These actions caused enormous outrage with the US electorate and infused the mistrust of market investors, situation that threatened to disrupt the process by which companies raise capital. Green (2004) concludes that it was adamant to restore public confidence in the capital markets by the end of 2002.

In the year 2000, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company paired with luxury real estate developer Millennium Partners to build a $225 million hospitality complex in the heart of Washington DC. This 300-room hotel was set to be the first out of a six-hotel deal between these two companies. The structure of the deal was that Millennium Partners would be the owners of the properties and The Ritz-Carlton would manage them.

1) Evaluate HTC’s performance as described in the case. What are its competitive assets and liabilities?

The key question in this incident is whether Blizzard Resorts Inc. brought up the contract of the signed ticket on the reverse side and has provided sufficient notice of the liability exclusion to participants.

One of the main tasks of the enterprises of various forms of ownership and spheres of activity - the search for effective ways to manage labor to ensure the activation of the human factor and achieve the best production results. The company «Hyatt Hotels Corporation» is today one of the leading companies offering hotel services. The company, headed more than 500 hotels all over the world, is of great interest as an object of study of the corporate culture, because it includes a huge number of employees (more than 30 thousand people). Hyatt Hotels and Resorts are distinguished unsurpassed quality of services precisely because of its staff. At the heart of the corporate principles of the company have the task to give our employees

Even the small profits reported by Enron in 2000 were eventually determined to be only a illusion by court-appointed bankruptcy examiner Neal Batson. Batson’s report reveals that over 95% of the reported profits in these two years were attributed to Enron’s misuse of MTM and other accounting techniques. But while financial analysts could not be expected to know that the company illegally manipulated the earnings, the reported profit margins in 2000 were so low and were declining so steadily that they should have merited ample skepticism from analysts about the company’s profits.

Marriott International envisions itself to be the world’s lodging leader. Its mission is to provide the best possible lodging services experience to customers who vary in backgrounds, language, tradition, religion and cultures all around the world. Marriot is committed to environmental preservation through using environment-friendly technology and engages in social responsibility and community engagement.  We value our shareholder’s so we will only take steps that will ensure our growth. Most importantly, through our “spirit to serve”, we emphasize the importance of Marriott’s people and recognize the value they bring to the organization’s growth and success. It aims to increase revenues by 9% every year, to increase

This research paper will explore the fraud at Tyco and focus primarily on accounting and auditing issues related to the fraud. One thing worth noting about this case is that fraudulent financial reporting was not at the core of the fraud, which was the case with majority other big frauds at the time, such as Enron and Waste Management. On the contrary, fraud consisted of misappropriation of assets, and fraudulent financial reporting came as a consequence of trying to hide misappropriation of assets and the use of corporate money for personal benefit.

The Marriott Corporation, an American firm, was founded in 1927 by J.Willard Marriot.The company began as a small beer stand and soon began to sell food and provided lodging that expanded rapidly. With the help of his wife Alice, the family owned business had 45 restaurants in nine states by 1940 and grew into one of the leading service companies. The Company has three major lines of business: lodging, contract service and restaurants.

Wynn Resorts Limited (Wynn) is high-end developer and operator of resort-style casinos. Wynn offers hotel rooms and suites, gambling, fine-dining, spas, and boutiques. Founded in 2002 by American business magnate Steve Wynn, the company currently has two locations in Las Vegas, Nevada and two locations Macau, China. In 2016, Wynn plans to open Wynn Palace, a 1,700 room hotel and casino in Macau. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol WYNN.

In this case, Elite Hotel is planning to employs a total of 300 full-time staff across 7 departments for locals are cheaper than their foreign counterparts. It is good news to the hotel owners and also forces hotel management companies to think carefully when staffing a hotel. As Tim Williams (2013) addressed, "Do not hire expats as Resident Manager, Rooms or F&B Director unless you think they have the potential to push through to GM."

This paper will discuss the corporation WorldCom, a telecommunications company that was based in Mississippi. In 2002 WorldCom was involved in one of the largest accounting scandals in the United States. WorldCom inflated its assets by nearly $11 billion dollars, which eventually lead to about 30,000 employees losing their jobs, as well as, 180-billion dollars in losses for its investors. The CEO at the time of this accounting fraud was Bernard Ebbers and led to him receiving a 25-year prison sentence. This paper will go into the details of how WorldCom was able to manipulate its accounting records to deceive its internal auditors, as well as, investors.