Case Study Of Enron Scandal

On October 16, Enron announced a $638 million loss for the third quarter, and Wall Street reduced the value of stockholders’ equity by $1.2 billion. Enron announced November 8, that it had overstated earnings over the past four years by $586 million and that it was responsible for up to $3 billion in obligations to various partnerships. A $23 billion merger from rival Dynegy was dropped November 28 after lenders downgraded Enron’s debt to junk bond status.

The time frame is early 2002, and the news breaks worldwide. The collapse of corporate giants in America amidst fraud and stock manipulations surfaces. Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth and later Adelphia are all suspected of the highest level of fraud, accounting manipulation, and unethical behavior. This is a dark time in history of Corporate America. The FBI and the CIA are doing investigations on all of these companies as it relates to unethical account practices, and fraud emerges. Investigations found that Enron, arguably the most well-known, had long shredding sessions of important documents and gross manipulation of stocks and bonds. This company alone caused one of the biggest economic

Enron was a publicly traded energy company formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay when Internorth acquired Houston Natural Gas; the company, based in Houston Texas, Enron (originally entitled “EnterOn”, but was later subjected to abbreviation), worked specifically in power, natural gas, and paper and even ventured into various non-energy-based fields as they expanded, including: Internet bandwidth, risk management, and weather derivatives. Several years after the founding of the company, Enron hired a man by the name of Jeffrey Skilling, a former chemical and energy consultant, who, upon promotion, created a team of high-level administrative employees who, by using special purpose entities, lackluster reporting of finances, and unethical accounting practices, hid billions of dollars of debt from unsuccessful arrangements and ventures from stock holders and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Enron executives achieved this scheme by using a controversial accounting method entitled “mark-to-market accounting,” which in essence, assigns value to financial commodities based on their projected market values; mark-to-market accounting is the opposite of cost-based accounting which records the price of a commodity at the purchase price. As a result of this new method, Enron’s worth skyrocketed to over $70 billion at one time, only to collapse miserably several years later—ultimately costing thousands upon thousands of people their jobs, pensions, and retirements. Enron’s employees

The predecessor of Enron Corporation was an Omaha-based natural gas company created in 1930; steady growth in profits and sales and numerous acquisitions allowed Enron to become the largest natural gas company in the United States by the mid-1980s.

The Enron corporation was an amalgamation of Houston Natural Gas and Internorth two of the largest natural gas suppliers in the United States. It was built upon the company 's ability to convince congress to deregulate the sale of natural gas through supplying electrical pieces at market prices. This allowed Enron to begin to sell power at higher prices therefore driving their revenue up. The company also began to spread its grasp out of natural gas and into a myriad of other power sources across the globe including water, pulp and paper plants. This was all done through a massive series of loopholes and massive amounts of money being funneled into Congress to lobby against regulations of such activities.

Enron was a company that operated one of the largest natural gas transmissions networks in North America. At the top of its game, Enron was a successful multi-billion dollar company that marketed electricity and natural gas. Enron also provided financial and risk management services to consumers around the globe. Because of its success, Enron left many people astonished when it declared bankruptcy in December 2001. Twenty thousand employees were left without jobs and most had lost their entire life savings due to investing it in the company’s stock.

Enron was firstly a natural gas pipeline company that combine as the combination of Nebraska and Omaha’s natural gas company, Houston Natural gas and InterNorth. It took 15 years from 1985 to 2000 to climb up into the one of the largest gas company in North America. Behind the successful of the company, it was a story of betrayal and

Enron had millions of stakeholders that believed and had trust in the company. According to USA TODAY, in 2000 Enron had around 21,000 employees and 754.3 million shares outstanding at its peak price of $83 per share. The company made most of their profits by transporting their gas product to utility companies through pipelines at fair market value. Enron also provided electricity to the Northwestern side of the United States and communications for its wholesale and retail customers globally.

Enron never disclosed these losses to investors or the SEC until October 2001. Through different accounting practices with the help of its auditors (Arthur Andersen) Enron declared revenue numbers in the billions of dollars. Fortune magazine named Enron the most innovative company for six years straight and was ranked as the seventh largest company in the Fortune 500.

The objective of an audit is to “obtain reasonable assurance” of the credibility of the financial statements of a company . However, in some cases auditors can fail to recognize – or intentionally ignore – misleading data within a company’s financial statements, leading to negative outcomes for lenders and investors. This report will discuss the Enron scandal in which the auditing firm Arthur Andersen LLP turned a blind eye to the fraudulent actions of Enron Corporation, leading to the downfall of both companies and great harm to thousands of stakeholders.

Enron Corporation can be considered as one of the largest fraud scandals in history of U.S. The fraud has been conducted by Enron’s top managements

The company was constantly emphasizing its stock price. The policy of stock option awards caused management to create potential situations of rapid growth in efforts to give the appearance of reported earnings to meet Wall Street's expectations. Although Enron's compensation and performance management system was designed to retain and reward its most valuable employees, the system contributed to a dysfunctional corporate culture that became interested only in short-term profits to maximize bonuses. In addition, accounting results were recorded as soon as possible to keep up with the company's stock price. This practice helped ensure deal-makers and executives received large cash bonuses and stock options.

Enron Corporation was an energy company founded in Omaha, Nebraska. The corporation chose Houston, Texas to home its headquarters and staffed about 20,000 people. It was one of the largest natural gas and electricity providers in the United States, and even the world. In the 1990’s, Enron was widely considered a highly innovative, financially booming company, with shares trading at about $90 at their highest points. Little did the public know, the success of the company was a gigantic lie, and possibly the largest example of white-collar crime in the history of business.

Ethics in the business world can often times become a second priority behind the gaining of profits and success as a company. This is the controversial issue that led to the Enron scandal and ultimately the fall of this company. Enron Corporation was an energy company, and in the peaks of their success, they were the top supplier of natural gas and electricity throughout America. Enron Corporation came about from a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Houston Natural Gas was a gas providing company formed in Houston during the 1920’s. InterNorth was a company formed in Nebraska during the 1930’s and owned one of America’s largest pipeline networks. In 1985, Sam Segnar, the CEO of InterNorth bought out Houston Natural Gas for $2.4 billion. A year later in 1986, Segnar retired and was replaced by Kenneth Lay, who renamed the company and created Enron. Enron was the owner of the second largest pipeline in America that measured over 36,000 miles. The company was also the creator of the “Gas Bank”, which was a new way to trade and market natural gas and served as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. As the company continued to develop, it became more of a trader rather than a producer of gas. This trading extended into coal, steel, water and many other areas. One of Enron’s largest successes was their creation of a website called, “Enron Online” in 1999, which quickly became one of the top trading cites in the world. By the year 2000 Enron as a company was

The story of Enron begins in 1985, with the merger of two pipeline companies, orchestrated by a man named Kenneth L. Lay (1). In its 15 years of existence, Enron expanded its operations to provide products and services in the areas of electricity, natural gas as well as communications (9). Through its diversification, Enron would become known as a corporate America darling (9) and Fortune Magazine’s most innovative company for 5 years in a row (10). They reported extraordinary profits in a short amount of time. For example, in 1998 Enron shares were valued at a little over $20, while in mid-2000, those same shares were valued at just over $90 (10), the all-time high during the company’s existence (9).