Business Ethics Presentation
Transcript: Verdict and Conclusion Strategy Enron put up an impression of a constant innovator, focusing on rapid growth rather than earnings The New Culture The working culture took a very aggressive turn emanating ambition, greed and contempt Ends, not the means, had become the focus Anyone questioning or challenging the means was stopped Investors were forced to overcome their hesitations in spite of a few questionable means due to the sheer size of Enron Pipes to riches in wonderland ... Arthur Anderson shared responsibility of loss with Enron Signed off majority of accounts (at times under pressure) Enron was one of biggest clients, so lost badly Accounting audit firms run on trust( 60 years of Integrity) The protector (of investors) turns thief Sell technology consulting services to firms they were auditing->Mixed revenue model to benefit each other Wallflower auditing culture->swinging Consultant culture-> Large amount of money Enron’s auditor company, Arthur Andersen was accused of applying reckless standard of audit and using accounting limitations to misrepresent the earnings and modify the balance sheet for indicating favorable performance, and complicate the financial statements to make it difficult for shareholders to understand $90 – All Time High $83 – Value in the beginning of 2001 $79 – Jeffrey Skilling accepted the office of CEO $58 – Bailout of failing Raptors $40 – S. Watkins wrote an anonymous letter to Lay stating accounting scandal concerns $36 – Lehmann Brothers went on to recommend buying Enron stock, Fastow reassured about Enron’s golden future $25 – Lay motivated employees to buy more Enron stock $20.65 – the SEC launched an investigation into Enron, Deloitte & Touche to look into the books Final attempt to save Enron through selling to Dynegy failed On December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy. The Real Beneficiaries – Lay ($37 million), Skilling ($14 million), Pai ($62 million), Fastow ($45 million) The Real Losers – Employees of Enron The New Accounting “Mark-to-Market” Accounting allowed Enron to record profits based on ambiguous perception of future incomes. Auditors were reluctant to assert strict auditing standards as they doubled up as their consultants Endgame Begins California Energy Crisis, Price spikes, blackouts lots of money for energy companies Reasons of Decline Decline of telecom and internet companies Falling gas prices By March 2001, a second rescue operation was carried out to save Enron from a huge loss Mr Fatsow Professional Services Group decided to stop but overrode by Duncan $7 million fined by SEC for signing off on false documents in Waste Management “Cease and Desist” order by SEC “Firms document retention policy” : Destroying extraneous documents Destroyed documents related to Enron Obstruction to Justice Beginnings... Mr Duncan Board of Directors have traditionally been paid largely in stock to align their interests with shareholders Directors can sell out early based on insider information When senior executives are charged with failure to abide by SEC rulings, the company typically pays the fine Careful dismantling of all the checks and balances The special purpose entities like LJM and raptors, whitewing and its poor financial Reporting helped the company to hide its billions of dollar debt from failed deals and steal money from the company CFO Andrew Fatsow approved the sale of under performing assets to improve its balance sheet. The wall street fixation was its major focus Group C10: U112131 - Avani Jain U112136 - Ganaish Choudhury U112141 - Goutam Khadanga U112145 - Manoj Mishra U112151 - Nishant Panigrahi U112155 - Pratikshya Mohanty U112161 - Rashmi Ranjan Das In June 1984, Kenneth L. Lay became chairman and COO of Houston Natural Gas He envisioned to make natural gas transportation company the biggest and the most profitable HNG merged with InterNorth, Inc., a small pipeline company, giving rise to Enron From a simple transportation service, Enron emerged into an immense online “gas bank” in the commodities market What was in store... Deals.. Plato: “Greed is unlimited” Consultants separated to form Accenture Joseph H Berardino : “Secured Enron as the largest client: $1 million/ week Carl Bass: Discomfort for “Aggressive hedging strategy for derivatives” Carl Bass replaced by David Duncan Conflict in Chicago headquarters over approving the dubious deals Deals: highly risky and dishonest to inflate profits Rescued tailing Raptors by “Cross-Collateralization” linking debts and assets for all four Raptors Democrats see Enron as justification for a strong assertion of government power to outlaw conflicts of interest and even restore the ban on companies operating in both the banking and securities industries On Feb. 13, the SEC took a large step in that direction by announcing plans to impose far stiffer disclosure rules on companies, like insisting that significant trading in company stock by officers and directors must be revealed immediately & that
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