Case Study Of The Collapse Of Lehman Brothers

An implicit theme of this case that I want students to recognize is the contrast between the persistent and vigorous efforts of David Sokol to “get to the bottom” of the suspicious items he uncovered in JWP’s accounting records versus what Judge William Conner referred to as the “spinelessness” of JWP’s auditors. The JWP audits were similar to most problem audits in that the auditors encountered numerous red flags and questionable entries in the client’s accounting records but, for whatever reason, apparently failed to thoroughly investigate those items. On the other hand, Sokol refused to be deterred in his investigation of the troubling accounting issues that he discovered. The relationships that existed between members of JWP’s accounting staff and the Ernst & Young audit team apparently influenced the outcome of the JWP audits. Of course, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

* Retained expensive, high quality law and accounting firms-Cooley Godward, and Ernst & Young because there was validation through association with these expensive entities.

Overall, there were three “red flags” E&Y was not aware of during the audit. First, they neglected the 500% net income increase from 1999-2001. This should have raised awareness because revenues only increased by 5% during that same period. Second, the internal auditors were denied access to some of the corporate ledgers. E&Y should have seen this as being one of the largest red flags. Third, the audit team failed to properly investigate employee complaints.

For instance, the funds owed the company by the Rigas family went undisclosed in the statements, because the management at Adelphia deemed such disclosure as being “unnecessary” (Barlaup, Hanne, & Stuart, 2009). Given that Adelphia was a publicly traded company, the purposeful non-disclosure caused potential investors to rely on financial records that were grossly misleading. The inevitable result was the investors continued to inject money into a company that had all the appearances of profitability and sustained growth, but that was, in reality, rapidly becoming insolvent. Moreover, lending institutions also relied on the “independently-audited” financial statements, and they were more than eager to loan the company money, given Adelphia’s presumed state of financial “profitability.”

Arthur Anderson Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) was established in 1913 into the Accounting industry. They offered tax, consulting, and, auditing services to large corporations everywhere. Their headquarters were located in Chicago, Illinois and eventually had over 85,000 employees in 84 different countries (Collins, 2016). By the 1990’s Arthur Andersen had become one of the largest accounting firms, and was recognized as one of the “big five.” Along with being one of the largest accounting firms Arthur Andersen was also one of the most reputable. There were many factors that distinguished Arthur Andersen from other accounting firms, and the most notable were the honesty and integrity Arthur Andersen had established for the company (Moore & Crampton, 2000). Andersen set high standards which in turn resulted in the growth of their prestige. Many companies came to Arthur Andersen because of the trust it had established in the public and in the accounting Industry. One of the ways Arthur Andersen established their reputation was through their organizational structure and the culture of the company.

Accordingly, the firm had more mortgage-backed safes than any other company in the U.S; in fact, the mortgage-backed securities were four times as many as its value of shared equity to its shareholders. In the early parts 2007, the company had a total of $86 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities; the credit crisis of the U.S saw the stock value fall drastically (Pontell, 2014). The business was affected by the miscalculation; in the year to follow the company would eliminate mortgage-related employee positions and close its offices in the BNC unit and the Alt-A lender Aurora in some states.

Arthur Andersen (AA) contributed to the Enron disaster when it has failed to the management by failing to have Enron establish and enforce its own internal control. There has been flaws to AA‘s internal control. There has been assumption that AA partners were too motivated by revenue recognition thus, overlooking several criteria when providing their services to Enron. Additionally, AA also recognised the retention of audit clients as vital and a loss of any clients would be disadvantaged to an auditor’s career. In AA internal control, the person who is able to make most of the decisions is the person who is most concerned about the revenue or losses of the client’s company.

3. Freddie Mac was one of the government-sponsored enterprises, it delay to report its earnings report because of an accounting scandal that conduct it to restate earnings in November covering the years 2000 through 2002 which had understated them by $5billion. The company delayed making financial reports after 2002 and promised to release the 2003 earnings report by 30 June so it had time to rebuild its accounting systems. It promised to release 2003 earnings by June 30. Freddie Mac reported the earnings report had earned $4.89 billion last year down from $10.09 billion in 2002 and expected 2003 profit of $5.90 a share. Reflecting the consequences of the $5 billion restatement due to the management had ignored accounting rules to hide earnings

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, in September 2008 almost brought down the world’s financial system. Considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great depression of the 1930s. Economist Peter Morici coined the term the “The Great Recession” to describe the period. While the causes are still being debated, many ramifications are clear and include the failure of major corporations, large declines in asset values (some estimates put the drop in the trillions of dollars range), substantial government intervention across the globe, and a significant decline in economic activity. Both regulatory and market based solutions have been proposed or executed to attempt to combat the causes and effects of the crisis.

boring and routine forms of investment. He also knew that commissions are higher on the

Ernst & Whinney audit firm suffered tremendously from the backlash of ZZZZ Best’s case. One of the issues stemming from ZZZZ Best’s case is the difference between a review and an audit as evidence by civil suit filed by a California bank against the firm. The bank claimed that its decision to grant ZZZZ Best’s loan was based on the opinion of Ernst & Whinney review of ZZZZ Best’s financial statements period ending July 31, 1986. The case was ruled in favor of Ernst & Whinney as the audit firm had expressly stated in their report that it was not issuing an opinion and the bank should not have rely heavily on the review report. Also, ZZZZ Best was a public company at the time, a review of its

E&Y auditors violated their responsibility to the public and to their profession. The auditing standards that were violated were AU 15 responsibility of the auditor to obtain sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable basis for his opinion, AU section 339 preparation and maintenance of working papers, AU 339.01 Principle record of work contains information and conclusions the auditors have reached concerning significant matters in the working papers, AU 339.08 the auditor is required to “adopt reasonable procedures for safe custody of his working papers and retain them for a period, AU 15 was violated when Trauger requested revisions to the workpapers. AU 339, AU 339.01 and AU 339.08 were violated with the

In 2006, Net Bank recognized that there were some significant operating deficiencies and started to restructure the company in an effort to resume profitability. The company shut down or sold several businesses. Some of the shuttered companies included FTI, payroll and finance services, non-auto (RV, boat and aircraft) loans and the subprime/non-conforming mortgage companies. The independent auditor, Ernst and Young, resigned in 2006. Net Bank’s mortgage operations suffered greatly. Net Bank normally originated loans and resold the loans to other financial institutions on the open markets. Some of the loans that Net Bank sold did not meet the underwriting guidelines and Net Bank was forced to repurchase these loans from the other banks. Since

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. With $639 billion in assets and $619 billion in debt, Lehman 's bankruptcy filing was the largest in history, as its assets far surpassed those of previous bankrupt giants such as WorldCom and Enron. Lehman was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank at the time of its collapse, with 25,000 employees worldwide. The consequences for the world economy were extreme. Lehman’s ' fall contributed to a loss of confidence in other banks, a worldwide financial crisis and a deep recession in many countries. Lehman 's collapse roiled global financial markets for weeks, given the size of the company and its status as a major player in the U.S. and internationally. Many questioned the U.S. government 's decision to let Lehman fail, as compared to its tacit support for Bear Stearns, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) in March 2008. Lehman 's bankruptcy led to more than $46 billion of its market value being wiped out. Its collapse also served as the catalyst for the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America in an emergency deal that was also announced on September 15.

On September 10, 2008, Lehman Brothers announced the lowest decline as the shares dropped to 45%. It left the market value at $5.4 billion after the Korea Development Bank rejected to make an investment deal that could rescue Lehman. The company would seek capital from other investors in order to recover their financial situation. These efforts faltered and the situation grew more severe, even after the US government had already saved the Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Though it is less likely that the US government will keep Lehman's bailout, there should be a resolution from the Federal Reserve System to bolster Lehman’s finance so as to prevent the US economic declination.