World Com Analysis

3. On the topic of capitalizing line costs, critique the rationale included in CEO Scott Sullivan's

Cynthia Cooper was contemplating over this whole debacle with what was the right decision to make with her discovering “almost four billion dollars in questionable accounting entries”. (Mead) While contemplating something crossed her mind on deciding if she should speak up and become known as a whistleblower, is that her findings could cost WorldCom’s credibility, about seventy thousand employees would lose their jobs, and also pension funds that were loaded with WorldCom stock. Her job as an internal auditor she had a responsibility to WorldCom’s Stockholders and also her own conscious to do something like as the fraud that was uncovered was so

Without a question the BOD should have placed a high degree of reliance on Andersen, which at the time was one of the most prestigious worldwide accounting firms. The auditors should have known the kind of accounting taking place in Enron. In my opinion, Andersen knew, at least to some extent, the company’s financial condition. However, Enron was already too deep under water that blowing the whistle so late would have created problems for Andersen as well. According to the case, on 02/05/01, Andersen held internal meeting during which it addressed the company’s accounting from and oversight of the LJM partnership. Andersen never discussed these concerns with the Audit and Compliance Committee. Although the BOD has its faults, it should have been able to rely on Andersen’s work.

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.

Since the auditors failed to do their job properly, they should be held liable for failing to plan and perform the audit to discover material fraud. The red flags the auditors should have picked up when conducting the audit included rapid growth, bank transfers and other accounts, the avoidance of confirming the insurance restoration jobs, consistency of all the invoices, extravagant life style, cash flow problems, and problems meeting loan payments. Also the auditors never looked at construction contracts, issues, and whether ZZZZ Best had the necessary permits to do the work. This shows the auditors failed to exercise professional skepticism.

The stakeholders in this fraudulent case of WorldCom consist of Bernie Ebbers, Scott Sullivan, Buford Yates, David Myers, Cynthia Cooper, and Betty Vinson belong to the company. While the other stakeholders would consist of the creditors, Andersen (accounting firm), investors, and the public. This fraudulent act committed within WorldCom impacted every single stakeholder in a way. Either in a negative or positive way, most of the impact was caused with harm to everyone. The main individuals such as Ebbers, Sullivan, and Vinson all had major consequences as resulting with the fraud. Criminal trials were a major result with their fraudulent acts within WorldCom. Cooper was a lifesaver by most of the community. Aside from these individuals, the rest also got affected by the fraud. Investments conducted by the investors were all lost within the fraud process. The impact towards much of the image for Andersen was ruined. Many of the public lost their trust on the honesty and professionalism of Andersen and other certified public accounting firms. The entire employees from the top management to the smaller group of workers stayed unemployed and some with criminal punishment.

In trying to identify the agents that were paid off by SNC, the board members found that they were unable to contact some of the agents or to identify their true identity. This breach in the company accounting ethics occurred as a result of material weaknesses in the company's internal controls over their financial reporting which allowed the CEO to sign off on these transactions without informing the company chief

Due to these criminal activities, many top executives were convicted fraud and sentenced to spend time in prison. WorldCom activities did not align with the company's overall mission and goals. The actions taken by management were not in the best interest of the customer instead they were consumed with acquisitions and increasing the value of WorldCom Shares. The management also should have considered general accounting practices during their strategic planning. Furthermore, create procedures that protect all stakeholders within the firm.

On March 15, 2005 former CEO of WorldCom, Bernard Ebbers sat in a federal courtroom waiting for the verdict. As the former CEO of WorldCom, Ebbers was accused of being personally responsible for the financial destruction of the communications giant. An internal investigation had uncovered $11 billion dollars in fraudulent accounting practices. Later a second report in 2003 found that during Ebber’s 2001 tenure as CEO, the company had over-reported earnings and understated expenses by an astonishing $74.5 billion dollars (Martin, 2005, para 3). This report included the mismanagement of funds, unethical lending practices among its top executives, and false bookkeeping which led to loss of tens of thousands of its employees.

Preventative measures could have been instituted to avoid the WorldCom corporate fraud. First, WorldCom should have had an external Board of Governors comprised of businessmen

P., & Coulter, M. K., 2012, p. 152), although it seems none of WorldCom’s executive management team seemed to feel this way. Many steps could have been taken to prevent the collapse of the WorldCom empire, but only a few key managers held the power and none were willing to take action. One control that did not exist in WorldCom’s culture was allowing both internal and external auditors access to all necessary documents and statements. Without full disclosure of these items no one could see how many risks the company was taking by making fraudulent entries against their books. Also the external audit team, Arthur Anderson, held WorldCom as one of its best customers which was a major conflict of interest. This relationship lead to many fundamental mistakes from Anderson not keeping pressure on WorldCom and getting all vital information that would prove how poorly the company was being run. Had they been operating transparently, auditors and employees would have seen the accounting deception and could potentially have stopped it prior to the company’s collapse. In addition, by employing multiple auditing firms many of the mistakes being made may have been caught and discontinued from the beginning.

Needed for the Houston office of Andersen, an audit partner that understands the role of being a "public watchdog" with "ultimate allegiance to the creditors and shareholders" . Arthur Anderson abandoned its roles as independent auditor by turning a blind eye to improper accounting, including the failure to consolidate, failure of Enron to make $51million in proposed adjustments in 1997, and failure to adequately disclose the nature of transactions with subsidiaries . Another example is Lord Wakeham joined Enron as a non-executive director in 1994 and also sat on Enron's audit and compliance committee. In addition, Andersen also provides internal audit service to Enron, which in fact impact

WorldCom acquired Arthur Andersen as the independent external auditing for the company. As WorldCom grew after the merger with MCI, Andersen began to invoice less than they should have. The charges were defended as an opportunity to prolong business with WorldCom. (Kaplan and Kiron, 2007). This is an immediate red flag for a company. Where were the ethical practices of the independent auditor? If the auditor has no ethics, how can one possibly be assured that the company is performing its intended function appropriately? The board of directors should have immediately been informed of Andersen’s practices and made a decision to confront Andersen’s practices and possibly obtain new independent auditors.

The lack of independence for external auditors will lead to the neglect of auditing risks (William R.K., 2003), which are the main reasons for the failure of certified accountants and professional accounting organizations. The consequence of the external auditors deprived of independence would be very serious. And there are many cases, which aroused by the failure of external auditors and most are related to the lack of independence. One famous example is the bankruptcy of Enron and the role played by its external auditor, Arthur Andersen (Todd, S., 2003). Arthur Andersen was once one of the biggest accounting companies in the world, and was canceled for the involvement in the Enron bankruptcy scandal.

There were several people responsible for the WorldCom scandal, as well as, whistleblowers that first discovered the accounting fraud. The former CEO, Bernard Ebbers was found to be the main offender of the fraud. He did it by capitalizing inflated revenues with phony accounting entries and he was eventually sentenced to 25-years for fraud, conspiracy and filing false documents with regulators. Scott Sullivan, the former CFO, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and was sentenced to 5-years after testifying against Bernard Ebbers. The former Director of General Accounting, David Myers, pleaded guilty to