Enron
Abstract
The financial collapse of Enron had substantial and far-reaching ramifications throughout the financial investment field, tax compliance professions and the accounting profession. Intense Congressional scrutiny resulted in a new era of transparency in financial reporting, stricter reporting standards as provided in Sarbanes-Oxley and substantial penalties for failure to comply with new financial reporting and tax compliance standards in the Internal Revenue Code (Bottiglieri et. al., 2009)
Enron Assignment
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 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 undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure (Bratton, 2002). Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he developed a staff of executives that, through the use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting, were able to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives were able to mislead Enron 's board of directors and audit committee of high-risk accounting issues as well as pressure Andersen to ignore the issues.
Enron 's stock price, which hit a high of US$90 per share in mid-2000, caused shareholders to lose nearly $11 billion when it plummeted to less than $1 by the end of November 2001. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began an investigation, and Dynegy offered to purchase the company at a fire sale price. When the deal fell through, Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001 under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, and with assets of
The financial collapse of Enron had substantial and far-reaching ramifications throughout the financial investment field, tax compliance professions and the accounting profession. Intense Congressional scrutiny resulted in a new era of transparency in financial reporting, stricter reporting standards as provided in Sarbanes-Oxley and substantial penalties for failure to comply with new financial reporting and tax compliance standards in the Internal Revenue Code (Bottiglieri et. al., 2009)
Enron Assignment
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 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 undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure (Bratton, 2002). Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he developed a staff of executives that, through the use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting, were able to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives were able to mislead Enron 's board of directors and audit committee of high-risk accounting issues as well as pressure Andersen to ignore the issues.
Enron 's stock price, which hit a high of US$90 per share in mid-2000, caused shareholders to lose nearly $11 billion when it plummeted to less than $1 by the end of November 2001. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began an investigation, and Dynegy offered to purchase the company at a fire sale price. When the deal fell through, Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001 under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, and with assets of
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