1. What activities and practices of Enron’s management team do you believe were unethical and/ or illegal?…
Sunny Abberton's highly personal documentary, narrated by Russell Crowe, examines Australian surf culture – a far cry from the endless summer stereotype image of laid-back guys blessed out on being one with the waves -- through the story of his own family. What it lacks in objectivity, it makes up for in vivid intimacy.…
The Parmalat situation started out as a fairly standard – although sizeable –accounting fraud. Not even the best auditors could prepare for what was to come from this company. The Parmalat group, a world leader in the dairy food business, collapsed and entered bankruptcy protection in December 2003 after acknowledging massive holes in its financial statements. This happened when billions of euros seem to have gone missing from the company’s accounts. This dramatic collapse has led to the questioning of the soundness of accounting and financial reporting standards as well as of the Italian corporate governance system. Parmalat, which is headquartered in the central Italian city of Parma, was, like most Italian firms, launched as a family business. Under the direction of Calisto Tanzi, the capofamiglia, he began expanding the business shortly after his father’s death in 1961, transforming it from a small sausage and cheese shop into an international food and beverage concern. In a world where your network is your net worth, he formed close relationships with the Christian Democrats, who governed Italy throughout the postwar period. Today Parmalat is a leading producer of such items as pasteurized milk, cheese, yogurt, cookies, juice and iced tea, most of which are sold under a variety of names in different countries. Well-known names in North America include Archway and Mother’s cookies, Olivina margarine, Black Diamond and Balderson’s cheeses, and Astro yogurt. After such a description one may think that the company is very successful but this was only the beginning.…
1. Based on Alex Gibney’s film version of the rise and fall of Enron, do you accept Joel Bakan’s argument that the corporation shows “psychopathic” traits?…
Parmalat is a multinational Italian dairy food corporation that today represents one of the biggest fraud scandals that has marked history in Europe. What happened and why weren’t the scandalous activities detected beforehand? Parmalat’s investigation was triggered when it “defaulted on a $187 million bond payment in mid-November 2002.” This led to further revelation of the nonexistence of $4 billion worth of claimed bank deposits held by a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands in a Bank of America account. The company was basically falsifying accounts in order to increase assets and hide losses. The increase in assets would influence the public to believe that they were in a good position which in turn allowed them to continue borrowing money from investors and creditors. Grant Thornton was the company’s auditor from 1990 to 1999, but that changed when the company was forced to change auditors under Italian law. Grant Thornton remained in charge of auditing services provided to off-shore subsidiaries located in the Cayman Islands.…
“A white paper is a government report outlining policy or authoritative report on a major issue. White papers discuss a specific business issue, product, or competitive situation.”…
The Enron debacle created what one public official reported was a “crisis of confidence” on the part of the public in the accounting profession. List the parties who you believe are most responsible for that crisis. Briefly justify each of your choices.…
Parmalat is a European company, and it’s headquarter is in Italy. The US Security and Exchange Commission still targeted Parmalat with fraud charge after the Parmalat fraud was revealed on Dec, 2003 (Kapner, D.W., 2003). The US SEC caught the chance to practice its law in a long range when Parmalat sponsored a program called American Depositary Receipts in the US to raise money since August 1996. The SEC stated that Parmalat sold their bonds to American investors while presenting untrue financial statements. The SEC also claimed that American investors had been cheated by Parmalat and purchased Parmalat’s note and bond totaling in dollar value of 1.5 billion by the time Parmalat was bankrupted. The SEC said that the ADR program was also affected by Parmalat’s misleading data, and the SEC has the right to protect American investors’ interest. This explains how the SEC is involved in the case of Parmalat fraud.…
Two years after Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, Nancy b. Rapoport wrote this essay expressing her unique perspective on the real cause of Enron’s demise. This essay catches the reader’s attention instantly, because unlike abundant other articles written on the biggest corporate scandal in American history, the author here rejects Jeff Skilling’s (former president of Enron) argument1 of what brought about Enron’s downfall. She instead uses another metaphor, arguing that Enron’s downfall was more like Titanic’s- hubris and over reliance on checks and balances that led to its demise rather than a ‘Perfect Storm’ of events. The purpose behind her preference of the metaphor ‘Titanic’ over ‘Perfect storm’ clarifies and warns readers about not being misled into believing that Enron’s downfall was based on factors ‘outside of the company’s control’ rather was caused by a ‘synergetic combination of human errors’. In justifying the Titanic as a more apt analogy to the downfall of Enron, the author offers strong arguments such as how the Enron is in some sense a larger-than-life disaster much like the Titanic. While Titanic’s failure was tied to the unrealistic faith in technology to protect passengers, Enron’s failure was tied to the unrealistic faith that formal and informal checks and balances could always keep the market honest. However, her strongest argument of ‘hubris’ found both in the top executives of Enron as well as the officers of Titanic is not convincing. As much as the greed for money is evident in Enron employees and their arrogant behavior, her equivalent assertion that the Titanic can trace the loss of life directly to human arrogance (pg 209) lacks adequate evidence. Whether her proof of…
Parmalat's founder and now former CEO Calisto Tanzi engaged the firm in several exotic enterprises, such as a tourism agency called Parmatour, and the purchase of the local soccer club Parma. Huge sums were poured into these two enterprises, which have been a loss from the very beginning. It has been reported that Parmatour, now closed, has a loss of at least EU 2 billion, an incredibly high figure for a tourist agency.…
The rise and fall of Enron is a company that was lead to its own demise by it’s own leadership and ill business decisions. The motivational theories explained from the readings of Organization Behavior can correlate with the failure of Enron’s internal organization. Even though a company may appear to display successful business practices, the influence of leadership through management can ultimately lead the company to fail.…
Enron Corporation, a major billion dollar company, was thriving at its highest level back in the year of 2000. Enron employed approximately 22,000 associates and was named “America’s most innovative company” by Fortune. However, under all of the bliss, revealed was a substantial amount of corporate fraud and corruption. The Enron scandal involved both illegal and unethical activity. Enron’s executive chose deception of the stakeholders and short-term financial gains for themselves. They were willing to destroy their personal and business reputations, as well as their social standings. The reason for this paper is to show that Enron valued making money above everything else, which lead to unethical behavior. Enron executives were motivated by greed of money, arrogance, pride, and self-interest.…
After eluding financial analysts and investors for a long time, Parmalat went bankrupt later in December, 2003 and many of their board of directors have been arrested since then. Here is a brief summary of the events: In the late 1980’s, Parmalat’s financial situation was poor due to investment in side businesses. i.e. TV network, Parmatur, football teams (Palmeiras, Parma, etc). Cash siphoning through these companies was estimated to be total of € 10 Bn. In 1990, Parmalat went public which enabled them to tap into the capital markets. Early 1990’s, the company began to acquire dairy producers around the world in order to try to hide the growing debt. Parmalat entered into a series of bond issuances and securitization of receivables to generate cash. A series of other fraudulent accounting practices occurred during the following years. In December 2003, Parmalat was not able to make a U$ 150MM bond payment and raised the attention of the entire market. When the fraud was brought up, Calisto Tanzi (Parmalat founder) and Fausto Tonna (CFO) was arrested along with another 10 individuals. Grant Thornton and Deloitte & Touché were Parmalat’s accounting firms during the last 2 decades. Partners of both firms were charged for fraudulent activity.…
Lack of management transparency and conflicts of interest - Parmalat’s CFO was also Chairman of Coloniale S.p.A., the Tanzi family holding firm that owned 51% of Parmalat5…
In 1985, Enron was formed by Kenneth Lay after the merging of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. In the 1990s, Lay helped to initiate the selling of electricity at market prices. Markets made it easier for Enron to sell energy at higher prices, which caused the company to get richer. Enron was the largest merchant of natural gas in 1992. In November 1999, the creation of EnronOnline enabled Enron to develop, negotiate and manage its trading business. By 2001, Enron became a multinational company that owned and operated gas pipelines, pulp and paper plants, broadband assets, electricity plants, and water plants. Enron used Wall Street to transform energy supplies into financial instruments that could be traded online like stocks and bonds, these contracts would guarantee their customers a steady supply at expected prices, they introduced supply and demand to the energy industry, it was supposed to be good for the customer. They got so bigheaded which created an insurance risk, it was a complete failure. Enron began to hide their bad business practices.…