Global Crossing: Corporate Governance and Agency Fraud in 2001:
Global Crossing Limited is a telecommunications giant and has always had broad ambitions to rapidly expand its telecommunication services throughout the world. It is an example of what may occur when there are failures in internal controls and properly audit financial statements. It filed for bankruptcy protection on account of an accounting scandal where it allegedly inflated earnings by using elements like capacity swaps. The scandal happened at around the same time of Enron transgression. In early 2002, the Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy, which was the fourth largest in the history of U.S. markets. However, it settled the case with the SEC in 2005, which makes its case slightly different in comparison to
…show more content…
Though these lawyers won’t be having access to the stock movements done but they can always spot any other sign of failure of corporate governance and revise the terms of the contracts of the company.
• Avoiding Bankruptcy:
• The financial situations of the company should be closely monitored. All the creditors especially the banks should deeply understand the account status of the company before granting loans and financial solutions to them. This will not only allow the creditors/banks to protect their own resources and financial systems but also prevent the company from spending more than its earnings, and hence from bankruptcy or insolvency.
• Increasing the Role of Investors:
• The new role that an investor must play is that it should actively participate in company’s activity. This will allow investors to protect their money and also invigilate the transactions. The careless investors can also become one of the reasons for these kind of frauds and failure of corporate
The siphoning of funds can occur in the income statement and capital, based on the corporate governance policies, these two areas are important where financial fraud schemes can be present. Corporate governance include policies that are framed to secure the corporation goals. It include financial goals and shareholders interest also.
At Novermeber 8th, 2001. Enron was forced to admit made false accounts and false number. Since 1997 Enron inflate profits totaling nearly $600 million. Along with in-depth investigation, these companies who have close partnership with Enron are also found out. These parterships are mostly controlled by Enron senior officials. Enron’s huge foreign loans are often inducled in these companies, and not appear on Enron’s balance sheet. Thus up to $13 billion Enron’s huge debt for investors would not know. Otherwise, Enron;s senior management for the company;s problems are well understand, but no one speak out. On the other hand, many of the board price will continue to rise and sell share in secret. The more irnoic thing is “ Fortune Magazine named Enron as ‘America;s Most Innovative Company’ for six years in a row perior to the scandal.
Throughout the past several years major corporate scandals have rocked the economy and hurt investor confidence. The largest bankruptcies in history have resulted from greedy executives that “cook the books” to gain the numbers they want. These scandals typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of assets or underreporting of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations (Medura 1-3). In response to the increasing number of scandals the US government amended the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 to mitigate these problems. Sarbanes Oxley has extensive regulations that hold the CEO and top executives responsible for the numbers they report but problems still occur. To ensure proper accounting standards have been used Sarbanes Oxley also requires that public companies be audited by accounting firms (Livingstone). The problem is that the accounting firms are also public companies that also have to look after their bottom line while still remaining objective with the corporations they audit. When an accounting firm is hired the company that hired them has the power in the relationship. When the company has the power they can bully the firm into doing what they tell them to do. The accounting firm then loses its objectivity and independence making their job ineffective and not accomplishing their goal of honest accounting (Gerard). Their have been 379 convictions of fraud to date, and 3 to 6 new cases opening per month. The problem has clearly not been solved (Ulinski).
This report gives the brief overview of the concept of corporate governance, its evolution and its significance in the corporate sector. The report highlights various key issues and concerns that are faced by the organizations while effectively implementing and promoting Corporate Governance.
BLMIS was also a huge audit failure and fraud. A company with an investments volume of $65 billion was being audited by a three member firm, Friehling & Horowitz, since 1991. After the collapse of BLMIS, it was discovered that the auditor never conducted any independent audits nor did they carry out any verification of revenues, assets, liabilities, bank accounts, or trading records. (Lewis, 2013b, pp. 370).
Among the study’s findings were that the deciding factor of the predictor of bankruptcy should not be only a few ratios, as the measure of a company’s financial solvency may differ as the firm’s situations differ. The important question is to which ratios are to be used and of those ratios chosen, which ratios are given priority weight.
Many remember and know of Enron not because of its reputation but because this company filed one of the largest bankruptcies to ever occur in American history. Enron began its reign as a powerhouse company when congress passed legislation that deregulated the sale of natural gas and electricity which allowed Enron to excel among companies in this field. This increased Enron’s stock price up to $90 per share and made it appear to be one of the best companies for stockholders to invest their money into. Enron then decided to create offshore accounts commonly referred to as special purpose entities that would hinder any losses that the company was incurring and also deter taxes since international territories have different laws, and would show how much profit the company was making.
Corporate governance changed drastically after the case of Andersen Auditors, Enron’s auditing service showed that they contributed to the scandal. Andersen was originally founded in 1913, and by taking tough stands against clients, quickly gained a national reputation as a reliable keeper of the people’s trust (Beasley, 2003). Andersen provided auditing statements with a ‘clean’ approval stamp from 1997 to 2001, but was found guilty of obstructing justice by shredding evidence relating to the Enron scandal on the 15th June 2002. It agrees to cease auditing public companies by 31 August (BBC News, 2002).
A spate of shattering corporate collapses, particularly among large listed companies despite their annual reports and accounts have raised numerous issues in corporate governance. The corporate meteoric rise and fall was associated with serious deficiencies in its corporate governance, including weaknesses in internal control, financial reporting, audit quality, board’s scrutiny of management. The collapse of a number of businesses have several important lessons on the role of corporate governance in preventing corporate collapse with the subject of increasing regulatory measure. Considering this, on 30 June 2010, a revised version of corporate governance principles and recommendations with 2010 amendments was issued to provide guidance to companies & investors on best practice of corporate governance and to increase the transparency of a listed company. These principles are not strictly binding “hybrid regulation” but generally entail some form of sanction if they are not followed the approach of the ASX is an ‘if not, why not’ approach where companies are asked to (1) detail whether they comply with each best practice recommendation and (2) explain why they do not comply if this is the case.
In 2002, WorldCom’s bankruptcy was the largest in US history; WorldCom admitted that it had falsely booked $3.85 billion in expenses to make the company appear more profitable. Ebber who was CEO of WorldCom created fictitious some more than questionable accounting practices. Thus began the practice of taking an operating expense and reclassifyin...
Financial distress is often expressed as the force that drives most of the corporate decisions. However, many researches argue that there is weak comprehension of the duties of and connections between corporate illiquidity and insolvency; the most important two causes of financial distress.
In today’s day and age, there is a lot of news that is related to corporate accounting fraud as companies intentionally manipulate their financial statements to show a better picture of their financial health. The objective of financial reporting is to provide financial information about a company to its various stakeholders such as investors and creditors so that these stakeholders can make decisions accordingly. Companies can show a better image of their financial well being by providing misleading information. This can be done by omitting material information from the books or deceitful appropriation of assets such as inventory theft, payroll fraud, check forgery or embezzlement. Fraudulent financial reporting will have an effect on the This includes but is not limited to; check forgery, inventory theft, cash or check theft, payroll fraud or service theft.
Auditing has become quite a challenge in recent years due to all the fraud scandals that has been going on. Such is the case that government was required to intervene and created the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; one of most significant reforms related to public companies since 1934. Modern corporations aren’t ran by their sole proprietors anymore but by managers whose job is to protect their interest. Particularly this is one of the reasons why the demand of auditing arose due to the natural conflict of interest between the owner and the manager. Both of these individuals will naturally look out for their best interest and will forget about the other. The owner wishes to see his company grow while the manager wishes to grow his pockets; their interests
There has been a drive towards corporate governance which has been driven by a greater need for shareholder protection. If investors feel well cushioned then there is a higher chance that t...
The failure of adequate board accountability has indicated strong adverse effects on corporate performance including, the bankruptcy of various public companies, thereby casting serious doubt on the credibility and efficacy of board accountability. For example, Lehman Brothers scandal, the largest bankruptcy in U.S history, Northern Rock was a large failure of a financial institution in the United Kingdom (Hull 2015:16). In Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Bank created a huge bubble that plunged the state into economic recession. In September 28, 2008, the Irish Government signed into law, the “bank guarantee” which provided with immediate effect a guarantee arrangement to safeguard all deposits in retail, commercial, institutional and interbank transactions, covered bonds, senior debt and dated subordinated debt (Lenihan 2008). Banks in Ireland clearly needed yet more capital from the State (Irish Times 19 November 2011) and this underscores the need for the government’s bailout