Accounting Fraud at WorldCom 1) What are the pressures that lead executives and managers to “cook the books?” After the rapid evolution of the telecommunication industry in the 1990s‚ WorldCom shifted its strategy to focus on building revenues and acquiring capacity sufficient to handle expected growth. Their biggest goal was to be the No. 1 stock on Wall Street rather than capturing the market share. As a result‚ their Expense-to-Revenue (E/R) Ratio was their measurement for their main objective
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of the Enron Scandal The main problem of the Enron scandal was that they committed business fraud. This is what the root problem of the company was. The sad thing about the Enron scandal was that approximately 22‚000 men and women lost their jobs. Not only did it affect the people who worked for the company but the problem was that it also affected other accounting firms that worked directly with Enron‚ for example the company Arthur Anderson went under because of the Enron scandal and this also
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Abstract - The Enron scandal is one of the biggest financial scams ever to take place and its root’s lie in the desire of the senior members of Enron to earn as much for themselves as possible and were assisted in this greatly by the negligence shown by their auditor’s and consultants‚ Arthur Andersen. Most of the debts and tangible assets of Enron were on the balance sheet of partnerships that were run by high-ranking officials within the corporation and these partnerships were recorded as related
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Effects of the Enron Scandal (Kassie) The Enron scandal had a great effect on the United States‚ with an impact on individuals from the consumer level to those running the company as well as the stock market and investors. Throughout the scandal‚ 4‚500 employees lost their jobs and investors lost approximately $60 billion dollars within a few days. The loss of such a large sum of money meant the loss of old-age and retirement security for many of the investors who put their money and faith in the
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cases such as: Accounting Irregularities at WorldCom and Arthur Andersen…No More: What Went Wrong? (Business Ethics 4th Ed: Cases 5 & 6 pg.101-109)‚ both clearly present various moral and ethical problems that arise that are real life business scenarios as well as question the impact of certain ‘special’ duties/obligations that apply to particular individuals and employees who choose to engage in these activities in the organization leading to their downfall. The WorldCom case and scandal occurred because
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would stay inflated. Another practice is that they switched from an agent model to a merchant model when recognizing revenue. Doing this gave them a 65% increase when typical industry standards only gain between 2-3%. Once they switched to this accounting method other companies started to follow their lead in order to stay competitive with Enron. In addition‚ Enron understated its liability and overstated its equity. They would do this by creating special purpose entities. These entities were created
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Executive Summary In this investigative report‚ it will show how Enron was involved in improper accounting practices that led to over $70 billion of losses and also Enron’s method that was used to able them in covering their losses. Enron’s fall and bankruptcy had affected not only the employees‚ but also the shareholders‚ U.S Citizens and also the impact that it had on other countries that Enron was affiliated with. The focus of this paper is on the creation of Enron’s business model that
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(Arthur Andersen) Arthur Andersen Limited Liability Partnership was one of the “Big Five” accounting firm who providing auditing‚ tax and consulting services to large corporations. This is an accounting firm that held by reputation and trust by public and investor but it facing bankruptcy in the end. Early of the 20th century‚ invertors don’t know who can be trust because there was spread of business scandals. All they need was auditors. Andersen establishes a company to be trusted. He and his auditors
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The Enron scandal‚ revealed in October 2001‚ eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation‚ an American energy company based in Houston‚ Texas‚ and the de facto dissolution of Arthur Andersen‚ which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time‚ Enron was attributed as the biggest audit failure.[1] Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural
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economy? The Enron scandal is an example of a historical exposure of unethical behaviors within a company and it is also one of the largest corporate scandals in America. Enron started as a gas pipeline company. It soon expanded into the world’s largest and dominant corporation focusing on trading gas‚ electricity and water – the most essential needs of a citizen living in North America. In December of 2001 Enron filed for bankruptcy. The moral concern from this scandal was the immoral practices
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