Ethics policies are implemented in almost all businesses. Companies search for candidates that will be moral in their actions so they can ensure long-term financial success. Throughout history we have seen businesses fall due to unethical behavior. In recent years the business Enron Corporation is best known for the scandal that led to the bankruptcy of a company with more than 60 billion dollars in assets. We will examine the circumstances that led to the downfall of Enron, how the scandal was realized, as well as the outcome of one of the largest bankruptcies in American history; a case that exemplifies unethical professional behavior. Enron started in the mid 1980’s with the merger of two major natural gas companies. The company grew to become the largest vendor of natural gas in the United States. Enron was very profitable …show more content…
CEO Jeffery Skilling and Kenneth Lay, the CEO prior to Skilling, were taken to trial. They were both found guilty of committing multiple types of financial crimes, and sentenced to 24 years in prison. CFO Andrew Fastow was also taken to trial and was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. The collapse of such a large corporation led to changes in financial controls. U.S. Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The SOX Act protects investors from deceitful accounting actions by companies (4). The Financial Accounting Standards Board increased its ethical behavior. FASB is responsible for generally accepted accounting principles, which provides standards for financial statements of publicly traded companies. These changes brought to life after the Enron scandal have decreased fraud and increased investor confidence. Although the acts that Enron committed were immoral and destroyed thousands of lives, it has lead an increase of controls and compliance, preventing something like this from happening in the
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
...FO at the Houston airport. While Mr. Fastow's parents were undergoing a random search, he stopped to chat with Mr. Schwieger. "I never got an opportunity to explain the partnerships to you," he said, according to Mr. Schwieger. Mr. Schwieger replied, "With everything that has come to light, I probably wouldn't like the answer I would have gotten."
Investors and the media once considered Enron to be the company of the future. The company had detailed code of ethics and powerful front men like Kenneth Lay, who is the son of a Baptist minister and whose own son was studying to enter the ministry (Flynt 1). Unfortunately the Enron board waived the company’s own ethic code requirements to allow the company’s Chief Financial Officer to serve as a general partner for the partnership that Enron was using as a conduit for much of its business. They also allowed discrepancies of millions of dollars. It was not until whistleblower Sherron S. Watkins stepped forward that the deceit began to unravel. Enron finally declared bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, leaving employees with out jobs or money.
United States Enron was an energy base company that was based out of Houston Texas. Enron
Enron Corporation was an American commodities, energy, and services company that was based out of Houston, Texas. This corporation was founded in 1985, resulting from the merger between InterNorth and Houston Natural Gas, these were both moderately small businesses in the United States. Before Enron’s bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, it had nearly 20,000 employees and was one of the global leaders in the communications, electricity, natural gas, and pulp and paper market, with declared earnings of approximately $101 billion during 2000. Enron was termed “America’s Most Innovative Company” by Fortune for six years in a row.
Most people usually work from rags to riches, but, this is not the case with the Enron Scandal. In 1985 Ken Lay created Enron when he merged two companies in the Natural Gas industry. Moving into the early 90s, he aided in the selling of electricity at regular market prices. Following this initial action, the US Congress approved the deregulation in the sale of natural gas. This caused Enron to be able to sell the energy at higher costs, increasing their profit.
Ethical behavior is behavior that a person considers to be appropriate. A person’s moral principals are shaped from birth, and developed overtime throughout the person’s life. There are many factors that can influence what a person believes whats is right, or what is wrong. Some factors are a person’s family, religious beliefs, culture, and experiences. In business it is of great importance for an employee to understand how to act ethically to prevent a company from being sued, and receiving criticism from the public while bringing in profits for the company. (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in an business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or to comply with their companies ethical standards. In some instances some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interest of the company. In this essay I will be examining the financial events surrounding Bernie Madoff, and the events surrounding Enron.
Starting in late 2001 Enron would purchase electricity commodities and then periodically shut down power plants in California. The widespread power outages caused the investments to increase in value, which Enron then sold for a profit. Throughout the late nineties, Enron used these methods to record astounding revenue and its stock price continued to rise. By late 2000, top executives at Enron, including Lay, Fastow, and Skilling, saw the company 's losses and failures and sold their respective stocks, cashing in millions simultaneously. Lay would constantly assure investors that all was well and that participating in Enron was a worthy idea, yet Enron stock began to drop
Enron Corporation started back in 1985. It was created as a merger of Houston Natural Gas and Omaha based InterNorth as a interstate pipeline company (CbcNews). Kenneth Lay was the former chief executive officer of Houston natural gas merged his company with another natural gas line company, Omaha Based InterNorth. During the time of the merger there were many arguments amongst the two companies and in the end Ken Lay the former C...
The Enron Corporation was born in the recession following the oil and energy crises of the 1970’s. Houston Natural Gas Company’s (HNG) CEO Kenneth Lay engineered a merger with Internorth Incorporated (Internorth) (Free, Macintosh, Stein, 2007, page 2), the CEO of Internorth, Samuel Segner, resigning six months following passing the title and responsibilities of CEO to Kenneth Lay. Enteron was born shortly afterwards as the HNG/Internorth merger rebranded first to Enteron then quickly shortening this to Enron in 1986. This newly formed company owned the second largest gas pipeline network in the US employing 15000 workers with $12.1 billion of assets; however alongside this came large amounts of debt with first year loss of $14million.During the initial years the newly formed company struggled as a traditional natural gas supplier within the regulated energy markets. The American governments change in policy regarding energy markets, with market deregulation being driven forward by new policy, opened up new possibilities for the struggling firm and paved the way to its rise to power.
Enron started about 18 years ago in July of 1985. Huston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth, a natural gas company. After their merge they decided to come up with a new name, Enron. Enron grew in that 18-year span to be one of America's largest companies. A man named Kenneth Lay who was an energy economist became the CEO of Enron. He was an optimistic man and was very eager to do things a new way. He built Enron into an enormous corporation and in just 9 years Enron became the largest marketer of electricity in the United States. Just 6 years after that, in the summer of 2000 the stock was at a tremendous all time high and sold for more than 80 dollars a share. Enron was doing great and everything you could see was perfect, but that was the problem, it was what you couldn't see that was about to get Enron to the record books.
This paper will analyze Enron’s Code of Ethics and examine the sections on values and corporate responsibility. The paper will use applicable theories and concepts and will detail Ken Lay’s view of ethics and Enron’s corporate social performance. The paper will argue that Enron was not being socially responsible to all of its stakeholders because it deceived employees and investors about its real financial status despite having stated in its company code of ethics that transparency, integrity, and respect for the law would be the cornerstones of its daily operations.
One of the most popular business bankruptcies and collapses known to date is that of the Enron Corporation. Enron, once known as "America's Most Innovative Company" by Fortune Magazine six straight years from 1996 to 2001. Enron seemed to be doing very well until the summer of 2001 generating a lot of cash and new businesses, but in October of 2001 Enron was forced to disclose that their accounting practices had been very creative, and failed to follow generally accepted accounting principles. Profits that had been soaring sky high were wiped away and replaced with enormous losses and charges that were never recorded properly. Unfortunately, Enron executives who were responsible for the shady accounting practices, were able to escape this debt by selling off most or all of their shares in the company (valued at over 10 million dollars) before the stock price fell greatly. They also froze employee's pension plans, and many people lost their jobs in the wake of the collapse and found out their retirement was history (Anonymous, 2002).
The main ethical issue with the Enron scandal is that Enron allowed legal loopholes to supersede ethical principles (Bowen & Heath, 2005). Enron used legal principles to justify what they were doing instead of acknowledging that the accounting processes they were using were unethical. Another one of the ethical issues is that Enron faced was that
Enron, a major natural gas company, suffered humiliation when it was disclosed the financial information was misrepresented. This significantly influenced that it accounting regulations in The United States.