The Scandall : The Failure Of The Enron Scandal

Kenneth Lay, (former Enron Chairman and CEO) and Enron poured millions of dollars into both political parties, cultivating access and using the entrée to lobby Congress, the White House and regulatory agencies for action that critical to the energy company’s spectacular growth.

The story of Enron is truly remarkable. As a company it merely controlled the electricity, natural gas and communications sectors of the world. It reported (key word, reported) revenues over one hundred billion US dollars and was presented America’s Most Innovative Company by Fortune magazine for six sequential years. But, with power comes greed and Enron from its inception employed people who set their eyes upon money, prestige, power or a combination of the three. The gluttony took over sectors which the company could not operate proficiently nor successfully.

The focus of the corporation soon changed direction once it was realized that investing in selling intangible assets on the market could provide easier and higher revenue returns. This type of trading on the open stock market, with little regulations is what allowed the infamous criminal acts to take place and led to one of the world’s worst bankruptcy cases in United States history. An investigation finally occurred when investors found suspicious stock prices increasing exponentially and a whistleblower raised concern that finally revealed the fraudulent operations of Enron’s top executives conspiring with multiple businesses.

Whenever someone hears the word "Enron" today, they usually think of the transgressions committed by the top-level executives who successfully managed to destroy the company's reputation and achievements.

Enron was at one time America 's seventh largest corporation. Enron fooled the world by portraying to be a steady company with good revenue but at the end we all seen that was not the case. Surprisingly large parts of Enron profit were made of paper. This was made possible due to traders and executives who were corrupt. Having deep debt and hiding

Enron was once one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp, paper and communications companies. However, in December 2, 2001, Enron suddenly filed for bankruptcy. During the ten years before Enron¡¦s went bankrupt, Enron¡¦s management had started transferring Enron¡¦s funding to personal accounts and made fake balance sheets, which provided investors information about how this company goes. (Gibney, 2005) These illegal actions, performed by certain individuals, finally led Enron to go bankrupt. These people¡¦s unethical behaviors such as CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Enron, auditors and journalists caused Enron to go bankrupt, and therefore are responsible for Enron¡¦s bankruptcy.

However, in the business world, the influence of power and money has cost people their livelihoods as well as compromised their self-dignity on many levels. One highly publicized scandal that many have known and read about is the Enron Scandal. The motive behind what a person will do remains endless as it is seen in this unfortunate tale of lies and greed in one corporation. The part that many question even to this day is when the story unfolded it was announced that several people in high positions were all aware of the unethical practices being done but, all decided to turn a blind eye. In the next few paragraphs, we will look at the events that led up to the fall of a company that was at the height of its growth and how all of that would change within minutes.

Enron was a corporation that reached heights unknown, only to watch it fall apart from the inside out based on a foundation of falsehoods and cheating. Enron established a business culture that flourished on competition and was perceived in society as an arrogant corporation, mainly because of its corporate leadership. The fairytale of Enron actually ended as a nightmare with it destroyed by one of America’s largest bankruptcies in history. The demise of Enron impacted the livelihood and futures of numerous employees, their pensions, and in due course impacted Wall Street in a significant way. Even people today are amazed at how such a powerful company met its demise so rapidly. Enron’s end was a product of greed when certain executives of Enron were not eager to accept the failure of their company. The company utilized mark-to-market accounting that detailed the projected impending profits from a long-term deal (Lawry, 2015, p. 28) The results of the deals did not generate revenue as anticipated, but tremendous loss instead. This resulted in Enron accumulating enormous amounts of debt that they attempted to keep classified from the public. Ultimately the truth came to fruition.

Enron was an U.S. energy-trading and utilities company that housed one of the biggest accounting frauds in history. Enron 's executives employed accounting practices that falsely inflated the company 's revenues, which, at the height of the scandal, made the firm become the seventh largest corporation in the United States. Once the fraud was detected, the company quickly unraveled and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001. (Investopedia, 2014)

Enron executives and accountants cooked the books and lied about the financial state of the company. They manipulated the earnings and booked revenue that never came in. This was encouraged by Ken Lay as long as the company was making money. Once word got out that they were disclosing this information, their stock plummeted from $90 to $0.26 causing the corporation to file for bankruptcy.

Enron was the largest company for energy and natural gas made possible through the merging of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth based in Omaha. The merger made Enron the largest energy trader in the country and the seventh largest in the world. The company advanced into new fields of business by launching a broadband service unit and Enron online, where people can go to trade commodities. Enron rose quickly to become one of America’s most valuable company. It had a peak of $100 billion in revenue and it was taking the market by storm. The company had many major projects and had plans to expand into foreign countries. With the much celebrated success, Enron would have a greater fall than its rise because of mismanagement and poor accounting practices. The company was known for hiring the smartest individuals in the country, but that did not prevent the company from its embarrassing collapse. Enron collapsed with millions of dollars of pension funds and about 5600 people were unemployed. The company that was thought to be performing in the eyes of the public was actually in deep trouble behind the curtains. The big question many people ask is what caused Enron’s collapse? The truth of the matter is that, Enron’s collapse was not caused by just one thing, it was caused by many things such as theft, lies, poor accounting practices, lack of auditing, political factors, and conspiracy. This is what Enron represented about a decade after the merger, this is how the company became

The following paper will explain the reason of why Enron as a company failed. It will compare and contrast the contributions of leadership, management and organizational structures to the failure.

Enron lost billions of dollars within a couple of months. This record breaking stock drop landed the company on the Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Department’s radar resulting in an investigation that revealed the company’s corrupt business practices ultimately shocking the world,

All of the prior represents the business side of the downfall of Enron. That being said, businesses fail all of the time. The reason why Enron Corporation and its executives will always live in infamy is not because the company failed, but how and why the company failed. How, exactly, does a company worth about $70 million collapse in less than a month? It became clear that the company not only had financial problems, but ethical problems that started from the top of the company and trickled down. A key player in these problems was Jeffrey Skilling. He was a man brought to the company by Ken Lay himself. Skilling brought his own accounting concept to the company. It was called mark-to-market accounting. This concept allowed Enron to record potential profits the day a deal was signed. This meant that the company could report whatever they “thought” profits from the deal were going to be and count the number towards actual profits, even if no money actually came in. Mark-to-market accounting granted Enron the power to report major profits to the public, even if they were little or even negative. It became a major way

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).