Enron Corporation (former
New York Stock Exchange ticker
symbol ENE) was an
American energy, commodities, and services company based in
Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on
December 2,
2001, Enron employed approximately 20,
000 staff and was one of the world's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $
101 billion during
2000.[1]
Fortune named Enron "
America's Most Innovative
Company" for six consecutive years.
At the end of 2001, it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by an institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known since as the
Enron scandal. Enron has since become a well-known example of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The scandal also brought into question the accounting practices and activities of many corporations in the
United States and was a factor in
the creation of the Sarbanes--Oxley Act of
2002. The scandal also affected the greater business world by causing the dissolution of the
Arthur Andersen accounting company.[2]
Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in the
Southern District of New York during late 2001 and selected
Weil, Gotshal & Manges as its bankruptcy counsel. It ended its bankruptcy during
November 2004, pursuant to a court-approved plan of reorganization, after one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in
U.S. history. A new board of directors changed the name of Enron to
Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., and emphasized reorganizing and liquidating certain operations and assets of the pre-bankruptcy Enron.[3] On
September 7,
2006, Enron sold
Prisma Energy International Inc., its last remaining business, to
Ashmore Energy International Ltd. (now
AEI).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron
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 de facto 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 was attributed as the biggest audit failure.[1]
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, by the use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting, were able to hide billions of dollars in debt from failed deals and projects.
Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives not only misled Enron's board of directors and audit committee on high-risk accounting practices, but also pressured Andersen to ignore the issues.
Enron shareholders filed a $40 billion lawsuit after the company's stock price, which achieved a high of
US$90.75 per share in mid-2000, plummeted to less than $1 by the end of
November 2001.[2]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (
SEC) began an investigation, and rival
Houston competitor Dynegy offered to purchase the company at a very low price. The deal failed, and on December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy under
Chapter 11 of the
United States Bankruptcy Code. Enron's $63.4 billion in assets made it the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history until WorldCom's bankruptcy the next year.[3]
Many executives at Enron were indicted for a variety of charges and were later sentenced to prison. Enron's auditor, Arthur Andersen, was found guilty in a
United States District Court, but by the time the ruling was overturned at the
U.S. Supreme Court, the company had lost the majority of its customers and had closed. Employees and shareholders received limited returns in lawsuits, despite losing billions in pensions and stock prices. As a consequence of the scandal, new regulations and legislation were enacted to expand the accuracy of financial reporting for public companies.[4] One piece of legislation, the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, increased penalties for destroying, altering, or fabricating records in federal investigations or for attempting to defraud shareholders. The act also increased the accountability of auditing firms to remain unbiased and independent of their clients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
- published: 28 Jan 2014
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