Enron Case Study Essays

“Although it was not the internal audit department’s duty, Cooper decided that she and several others in her division would investigate the company’s financials on their own, performing what essentially would be a series of mini audits. She did not mention that task to any of the higher-ups at WorldCom; instead, she and her staff worked long hours, often through the night, as they pored over the books.” (Mead) On one side of things, people could see that Cynthia Cooper acted on two code of ethics principles that internal auditors are expected to apply and to uphold. One being her integrity, which states that “internal auditors establishes

In your opinion, which of Brent’s alternative courses of action would provide the best outcome and why? What should Brent do? How would you handle the ethical issues involved in this situation?

According to an email sent February 6, 2001, Andersen considered dropping Enron as a client. In August, Enron Vice President Sherron Watkins wrote an anonymous memo to former Chairman Kenneth Lay, detailing reasons she thought Enron “might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.”

2. Attorney-Your honor, Dudley and Stephen had no other choice. They had to kill Brooks who was close to death anyway. Plus, if Dudley and Stephen hadn't

The Fastows headed to Mrs. Fastow's native Houston in 1990, both taking jobs at a young company called Enron. Just five years old, Enron was starting to evolve from a natural-gas and pipeline company into a trading firm. Mr. Fastow was one of the first managers hired by Mr. [Jeffrey Skilling], who himself

One of our most world-renowned business women and television personalities Martha Stewart decided to dip her feet into illegal insider trading. Martha served five months in a federal prison at Alderson in West Virginia and two additional years of supervised release after a portion in home confinement. Back in 2001, Martha Stewart sold all her shares from a biotech company she invested in called ImClone. Ironically, a few days after she sold her shares the company’s stock fell sixteen percent after they publicly announced that the FDA did not approve ImClone’s pharmaceutical product (Moffatt, 2017). With her selling her shares before the company went public and the subsequent drop in stock’s value, Martha avoided a $45,673 loss. In addition, she wasn’t the only one who benefitted from the quick sale. The CEO of ImClone, Sam Waskal, ordered to

With the Martha Stewart scandal her actions initially saved her $45,673 but in the end did it really help? She ended up serving less than a year in prison and was fined $250,000. In hind sight she ended up losing a lot more money from selling the stocks and lying about it then if she would have just kept the stocks and took the hit when ImClone’s value fell. But selling stocks based on inside information so you’re sure you don’t lose money in an investment; doesn’t that seem like the right thing to do? No one ever wants to lose money especially in an investment, but avoiding a loss by selling stock the way Martha Stewart did is considered illegal. Having inside knowledge of a company and using that knowledge to make moves before the market price changes at that time probably seemed like a great idea but is profoundly illegal and known as inside trading. Martha Stewart was and is a well-known business woman and at that time served as President, CEO and chairwoman of her publicly traded company. She was educated and knowledgeable about what is allowed or not allowed as far as selling, buying and trading stocks. Her understanding of SEC regulations is especially disconcerting since she had been a part of the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange. Martha was aware of the consequences that came with breaking the rules. Not only did she participate in insider trading and benefited from it but she also tried to cover it up claiming she and her stock broker

As with much of Enron, their outward appearance did not match what was really going on inside the company. Enron ended up cultivating their own demise for bankruptcy by how they ran their company. This corrupt corporate culture was a place whose employees threw ethical responsibility to the wind if it meant financial gain. At Enron, the employees were motivated by a very “cut-throat” culture. If an employee didn’t perform well enough, they would simply be replaced by someone who could. “The company’s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees” (Sims, pg.243). Like a parent to their children, when the executives of a company pursue unethical financial means, it sets a certain tone for their employees and even the market of the company. As mentioned before, Enron had a very “cut-throat” attitude in regards to their employees. This also became one Enron’s main ethical falling points. According to the class text, “employees were rated every six months, with those ranked in the bottom 20 percent forced to leave” (Ferrell, 2017, pg. 287). This system which pits employees against each other rather than having them work together will create a workplace of dishonesty and a recipe of disaster for the company. This coupled with the objective of financial growth, creates a very dim opportunity for any ethical culture. “The entire cultural framework of Enron not only allowed unethical behavior to flourish,

According to the documentation, those Enron people who faced ethical issues used different prescriptive reasoning approach to resolve their dilemma. Take Andrew Fastow as an example, he might not start all the fraudulent financial activities in the first place; however, he decided to do so in order to please the boss, when Ken Lay wanted to see neat financial disclosures. It seemed that Fastow

3. In your opinion, which of Brent’s alternative courses of action would provide the best outcome and why? What should Brent do? How would you handle the ethical issues involved in this situation?

With Enron, the responsibility and blame started with Enron’s executives, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. Their goal was to make Enron into the world’s greatest company. To make this goal a reality, they created a company culture that encouraged “rule breaking” and went so far as to “discourage employees from reporting and investigating ethical lapses and questionable business dealings” (Knapp, 2010, p. 14). They insisted the employees use aggressive and illegal

The book is written by two authors: Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins. Mimi Swartz is a journalist who graduated from Hampshire College. She has written for many publications. Her work has been included in Slate, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. Currently, she serves as an executive editor for Texas Monthly. Ms. Swartz is a long time resident of Texas, and was able to use her experiences and insight into the Texan psyche to highlight the personalities of the Texas company and the attitude of its employees. Sherron Watkins has a Bachelor 's in Business Administration from the University of Texas and a Master 's in Professional Accounting, also from the University of Texas. She went to work at the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, which was the accounting firm that handled Enron 's books. After Arthur Anderson, Watkins worked for three years at MG Trade Finance, a division of Metallgesellschaft AG, a large conglomerate that specialized in mining, chemicals, and finance. Watkins went to Enron after MG, where she stayed from 1993 until 2002, following its infamous bankruptcy. Sherron Watkins worked at many different portions of Enron, eventually becoming a vice president. She was one of the whistleblowers regarding Enron 's failure,

b) What is your evaluation of the position taken by Mr. Sullivan in his conference with the principal? In what way would you have acted differently if you had been the principal, during the conference with Mr. Sullivan?

One Merrill Lynch analyst began to question the numbers and profits that were being produced by Enron and eventually he was fired. Enron invested a lot of money with Merrill Lynch and they didn’t want Enron to stop investing so Merrill Lynch got rid of the employee who question Enron, when in reality they should have listened to him. Merrill Lynch’s decision not to listen to him showed other employees that they better keep quiet with their opinions or their jobs would be on the line. If they listened to him they might have lost the deal with Enron, but in the end they lost it anyway and lost millions along with it. Merrill Lynch’s main focus should have been their employees and their investors, not solely Enron. They should have stuck to their code of conduct and followed their values.

Sharon Watkins earned her 15 minutes of fame the honest way, as the Enron employee who blew the lid off of then CEO Ken Lay's debauchery. But for every celebrated whistleblower, there are hundreds who remain in the shadows. And for good Samaritans who do tell their tale, the price they pay can be exorbitant.