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ENRON SCANDAL and ethics
ENRON SCANDAL and ethics
ENRON SCANDAL and ethics
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The Enron Corporation was founded in 1985 out of Houston Texas and was one of the world 's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies that employed over 20,000 employees. This paper will address some of the ethical issues that plagued Enron and eventually led to its fall. The Enron Corporation was committed to pushing the legal limit as far as possible. Many individuals only seeking to promote their own well-being over any legal or ethical boundaries did this. This was not only isolated with the Enron Corporation, as Arthur Andersen the outside accounting firm and Vinson & Elkins Enron’s law firm were also participants. The key players that led to the collapse of Enron was the founder Kenneth Lay, his successor …show more content…
This resignation and abuse of power ran throughout the company leadership. Enron board members also failed in their duty to provide proper oversight and to challenge poor management decisions. This was due to Kenneth Lay selecting many of the Enron board members. These board members were selected not based on their skills or leadership but because they did business with Enron or represented non-profit organizations that received large contributions from the …show more content…
Take into consideration the auditors from Arthur Andersen. They did not take into consideration the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The auditors from Arthur Andersen took into consideration the consequences only for their own firm and their own well-being. Vinson & Elkins lawyers should not have destroyed evidence in order to protect their client Enron. Lawyers do take an oath to help protect and defend their client but they are not to help find ways for their client to violate 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."
Kenneth Lay was at the height of his career in April 2001, when Fortune magazine had claimed Enron to be the seventh largest company in the United States (G.Velasquez, 2006). However Kenneth Lay’s journey of success had a terrible downfall six month later when his company filed for bankruptcy December 2, 2001 (G.Velasquez, 2006). The claim of Enron’s bankruptcy is considered to be one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S history. Throughout Kenneth Lay’s trial he still claimed that he did nothing wrong and he had no part of what happened to his company and turn the blame on Andrew Fastrow. Down the line Kenneth Lay’s company was convicted for wiping out, $60 million in market values, 56 hundred jobs, and hundreds of employee’s life savings. Kenneth Lay claimed that Fastrow was the one behind the entire operation of the pension wipe out.
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.
The dilemma shows that although there are leading people in all corporations most leaders cannot be trusted with big responsibilities. Choosing this real life scandal educates me in what is happening in my major of business and it also opens my eyes to what essentially can happen in big corporations like Enron. Pondering on this dilemma allows me to bring up a different approach. Asking why those leaders weren’t caught in the beginning? In a small business like a sporting store or grocery store thefts are caught at hand and penalized for their wrong doings. This turns into a leadership dilemma we are faced with the questions of, what those leaders of Enron believed to be right and wrong or in their heads what was right and right.
for rules and regulations. Ethics is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with a
One cannot talk about or try to explain what took place with the downfall of Enron with out a brief history of the company. In 2001 they were considered one of the most innovated company and was ranked the fifth largest company on the Fortune 500, leading the market in energy production, distribution and trade (Culpan &Trussel, 2005). The company went from handling energy distribution to becoming a diversify company that dealt with many commodities.
The three main crooks Chairman Ken Lay, CEO Jeff Skilling, and CFO Andrew Fastow, are as off the rack as they come. Fastow was skimming from Enron by ripping off the con artists who showed him how to steal, by hiding Enron debt in dummy corporations, and getting rich off of it. Opportunity theory is ever present because since this scam was done once without penalty, it was done plenty of more times with ease. Skilling however, was the typical amoral nerd, with delusions of grandeur, who wanted to mess around with others because he was ridiculed as a kid, implementing an absurd rank and yank policy that led to employees grading each other, with the lowest graded people being fired. Structural humiliation played a direct role in shaping Skilling's thoughts and future actions. This did not mean the worst employees were fired, only the least popular, or those who were not afraid to tell the truth. Thus, the corrupt culture of Enron was born. At one point, in an inter...
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.
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...
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.
There are a few key players involved in this scandal that should be highlighted. First, is the founder Kenneth Lay. Lay was the chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Enron until the promotion of Jeffrey Skilling in February of 2001. It was under the management of Skilling that Enron began using ‘mark to market accounting’, defined as “when the value of an asset is updated to its current market levels,” meaning Enron estimated profits from future deals. This strategy helped make Enron one of the biggest gas and electricity wholesalers. Skilling did not last long as the CEO of Enron as he resigned in August of 2001, while also selling large amounts of his shares in the company. Another major contributor to this scandal was Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Fastow. Fastow was the key component to helping the Enron executives gather all this money from the company. David Duncan was another major factor that allowed this scandal to happen. Duncan was Enron’s chief auditor at Arthur Anderson, an accounting firm that provided auditing services. TRANSITION
Unethical accounting practices involving Enron date back to 1987. Enron’s use of creative accounting involved moving profits from one period to another to manipulate earnings. Anderson, Enron’s auditor, investigated and reported these unusual transactions to Enron’s audit committee, but failed to discuss the illegality of the acts (Girioux, 2008). Enron decided the act was immaterial and Anderson went along with their decision. At this point, the auditor’s should have reevaluated their risk assessment of Enron’s internal controls in light of how this matter was handled and the risks Enron was willing to take The history of unethical accounting practic...
Enron was on the of the most successful and innovative companies throughout the 1990s. In October of 2001, Enron admitted that its income had been vastly overstated; and its equity value was actually a couple of billion dollars less than was stated on its income statement (The Fall of Enron, 2016). Enron was forced to declare bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. The primary reasons behind the scandal at Enron was the negligence of Enron’s auditing group Arthur Andersen who helped the company to continually perpetrate the fraud (The Fall of Enron, 2016). The Enron collapse had a huge effect on present accounting regulations and rules.
In many circumstances, employees’ behaviors are likely to follow their leader. Enron’s leadership has been extremely influential due to exemplified charismatic. For example, Heffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, CFO and one of executive member in Enron, greatly encourage employees to follow their lead. Their incompetence accounting profession directly affects lover level of employees. Eventually, those manipulating accounting activities affect company collapse. Once leadership has done unethical professional accounting behaviors, unethical acts become accepted. Employees have many reasons for remaining quiet. While Enron still have ethical internal rules, when leadership in Enron did not abide and did not provide corresponding example of employees to follow (Prentice 2003, p. 417). Which eventually make Enron’s become one of the largest corporate scandal frauds.
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,