Waste Management Scandal Case Study

790 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Waste management company scandal in summary

“In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes”- Lincoln Steffens. In today’s world, there is so much corruption and scandals that are hard to recognize when we do its way too late. The accounting scandal I chose is the Waste Management Scandal of 1998. Waste Management was founded in 1968 and is a publicly traded waste management company that is based out of Houston, Texas. Throughout this essay, I will discuss upon the parties involved, the series of events that transpired, and the outcome of the case. The corrupt parties that were involved in this scandal was the Founder/CEO/Chairman Dean Buntrock and …show more content…

The outside pressure of having 20 million customers throughout America, Canada and Puerto Rico drove the top executives to become greedy for power and money. The chief officers recognized this and began to commit fraudulent activities. For example, in companies like Waste Management, Inc., officer compensation is tied to the earnings that the company produces. If the company were to struggle in falling short of their earnings target, it would endanger the officers of the company. Compensation tied to earnings brings about a major culture of fraud in any occupational environment. These officers had the opportunity to commit fraud within the company’s financial statements because they were all high up in the hierarchy of the organization. Buntrock, along with the other stakeholders, let greed get in the way of operating the company in an honest and efficient manner. They would falsely value their garbage trucks, assign estimated values on assets that they knew had little to no worth and held off on recording an expense from the decreases in value of their many …show more content…

Due to the fact that the company falsefully recorded the values of their assets, the credibility of Waste Management plummeted. When that illegal practice was discovered, an independent auditor had to go through all of the balance sheets which led to the complete loss of credibility of the top executives. Since Rooney sold company stock while he knew the fraud was going on, the company’s integrity majorly decreased. The shareholders had little to no safety net and were not truthfully informed of the fair potential consequences of their

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of The NASW Code Of Ethics

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • A Corporate Code of Ethics is Not Enough

    2353 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Corporate Crime Case Study

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    While this is a type of corporate culture, it plays a significant enough role in corporate crime that I’m going to touch on it individually. The goal of most every company is to make a profit, but when corporate profit is put above all else, it can easily lead to corporate crime. The phrases ‘profit over people’ and ‘money over morality’ come to mind here, especially when thinking about Enron. One example of Enron putting company profits above all else occurred during the California Energy Crisis. Enron traders learned that by manually shutting down power plants they could create artificial power shortages during California’s already occurring energy crisis. This would send energy prices sky rocketing. These traders would then bet on the price of energy rising, which it did, making them around 2 billion dollars. While those at Enron were fixated on the drive for profit, they were unconcerned with the consequences these outages had such as people getting stuck in elevators, fatal car crashes due to traffic light malfunctions, and deadly

    Read More

  • The Corporate Culture In Enron's Case

    436 Words  | 1 Pages

    The CFO, Andrew Fastow, systematically falsified there earnings by moving company losses off book and only reporting earnings, which led to Enron’s bankruptcy. Any safeguards or mechanisms that were in place to catch unethical behavior were thrown out the window when the corporate culture became a situation where every person was looking out for their own best interests. There were a select few employees that tried to get in front of the unethical accounting practices, but they were pushed aside and silenced. The corporate culture at Enron became a place where if an employee would not make unethical decisions then they would be terminated and the next person that would make those unethical decisions would replace them. Enron executives had no conscience or they would have cared for the people they ended up hurting. At one time, Enron probably was a growing company that had potential to make a difference, but because their lack of social responsibility and their excessive greed the company became known for the negative affects it had on society rather than the potential positive ones it could have had. Enron’s coercive power created fear amongst the employees, which created a corporate culture that drove everyone to make unethical decisions and eventually led to the downfall and bankruptcy of

    Read More

  • Enron Unethical Case Study

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    This did not last long because just a quickly as they rose so did they fall. Within a year their stocks were down to little of nothing, and their name was not one someone wanted to be associated with. The downward spiral can be contributed to the organization culture and improper checks and balances.

    Read More

  • Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Freddie Mac Ethics

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rather than being sticklers for following GAAP accounting principles and internal controls, this company took unethical behavior to a whole new level. They lied when the truth would have been easier to tell. It is almost as if they had no comprehension that the meaning of the word ethics is “the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group (professional ethics); the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation”, (Mirriam-Webster, 2011). To be ethical all one has to do is follow laws, rules, regulations and your own internal moral compass, all things this company seemed to know nothing about.

    Read More

  • The Enron Implosion and the Loss of Respect for the Accounting Profession

    5463 Words  | 11 Pages

    On the surface, the motives behind decisions and events leading to Enron’s downfall appear simple enough: individual and collective greed born in an atmosphere of market euphoria and corporate arrogance. Hardly anyone—the company, its employees, analysts or individual investors—wanted to believe the company was too good to be true. So, for a while, hardly anyone did. Many kept on buying the stock, the corporate mantra and the dream. In the meantime, the company made many high-risk deals, some of which were outside the company’s typical asset risk control process. Many went sour in the early months of 2001 as Enron’s stock price and debt rating imploded because of loss of investor and creditor trust. Methods the company used to disclose its complicated financial dealings were all wrong and downright deceptive. The company’s lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall. The whole affair happened under the watchful eye of Arthur Andersen LLP, which kept a whole floor of auditors assigned at Enron year-round.

    Read More

  • Worldcom Case Study

    1575 Words  | 4 Pages

    In modern day business, there can be so many pressures that can cause managers to commit fraud, even though it often starts as just a little bit at first, but will spiral out of control with time. In the case of WorldCom, there were several pressures that led executives and managers to “cook the books.” Much of WorldCom’s initial growth and success was due to acquisitions. Over time, WorldCom discovered that there were no more opportunities for growth through acquisitions when the U.S. Department of Justice disallowed the acquisition of Sprint.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Enron, Ethics And Organizational Culture

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    Enron Corporation was based in Houston, Texas and participated in the wholesale exchange of American energy and commodities (ex. electricity and natural gas). Enron found itself in the middle of a very public accounting fraud scandal in the early 2000s. The corruption of Enron’s CFO and top executives bring to question their ethics and ethical culture of the company. Additionally, examining Enron ethics, their organization culture, will help to determine how their criminal acts could have been prevented.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Enron/Arthur Anderson Scandal

    1550 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Enron Ethical Dilemmas

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    They were committing fraud by creative accounting, acting illegally when using insider trading and shredding their documents relevant to the investigation. Next, consider the stakeholders. Anyone who owns stock in the company would suffer, along with every employee. Under the values bullet we can assume that they have none. Greed and power got the better of every one of them.

    Read More

  • Tyco Case Study

    2321 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Tyco accounting scandal is an ideal illustration of how individuals who hold key positions in an organization are able to manipulate accounting practices and financial reports for personal gain. The few key individuals involved in the Tyco Scandal (CEO Kozlowski and CFO Swartz), used a number of clever and unique tactics in order to accomplish what they did; including spring loading, manipulating their ‘key-employee loan’ program, and multiple ‘hush money’ payouts.

    Read More

  • Ethical Culture Of Enron Essay

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    This article provides a brief background on the event leading to the demise of Enron. Additionally, this paper will discuss the cultural elements of Enron and their relationship to unethical behavior and its effects on stakeholders. Lastly, this paper offers an analysis of ethic theory and its application to the Enron Dilemma.

    Read More

  • The Enron Corporation Case Study

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through an organizational culture that focused on financial greed for self, illegal accounting practices, conflicts of interest partnerships, illegal business dealings, fraud, negligence, and massive corruption at all levels, the Enron scandal help to create new laws and regulations with stiff penalties if violated (Ferrell, et al, 2013). The federal government implemented the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) (Ferrell, et al, 2013).

    Read More

More about Waste Management Scandal Case Study

Open Document