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Scandal… how it is starts?
A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died last night." Kenny replied: "Well then, just give me my money back." The farmer said: "Can't do that. I went and spent it already." Kenny said: "OK then, just unload the donkey." The farmer asked: "What you goanna do with him?"
Kenny: "I'm going to raffle him off." (Note: To raffle is to sell a thing by lottery - draw lot - to a group of people each paying the same amount for a ticket) Farmer: "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" Kenny: "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead." A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?" Kenny: "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of 998.00." Farmer: "Didn't anyone complain?" Kenny: "Just the guy who won. So I gave him back his two dollars." Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron. Page 2
Enron-Introduction
Enron began in 1985 and it started as inter state pipeline company. Enron is formed by the merging of Houston Natural base and Obama based InterNorth. In 1988 it opens an office in UK & further extended to Gas Bank in 1989.
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Enron-Rise and Fall Long term suppliers of natural gas Holdings in U.K., Europe, South America and India Broadband unit with natural gas business Mark to Market Accounting practices Constant losses Largest bankruptcy in U.S. market Suicides and imprisonments Accountancy firm given maximum obstruction
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling
4000 employees lost job Charges against trading lay 11 criminal charges, including security and wire fraud, making false statements
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Enron founder Ken Lay
What went wrong?
Accounting and corporate governance in the United States, ethical quality of the culture of business generally and of business corporations in the United States. Change of business strategy and corporate culture to satisfy false means. Lack of efficient board of directors. Off book accounts. Excessive stock options and excessive corporate compensation. Financial cleverness. Misuse of Government rules and regulations.
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Unethical practices & Culprits
1993-2001: Enron senior management used complex and murky accounting schemes to reduce Enron’s tax payments • to inflate Enron’s income and profits • to inflate Enron’s stock price and credit rating • to hide losses in off-balance-sheet subsidiaries • to engineer off-balance-sheet schemes to funnel money to themselves, friends, and family • to fraudulently misrepresent Enron’s financial condition in public reports
Lax accounting by Arthur Anderson (AA) Co? “Rogue” AA auditor David Duncan (fired 1/15/02)? Enron’s management for hiding losses in dubious offbalance-sheet partnerships? CFO Andrew Fastow for setting up these partnerships (10 year prison sentence 1/14/02)? CEO Jeff Skilling (24 year prison sentence 10/23/06)? CEO Kenneth Lay (died 7/23/06 with charges pending)? Media exaggeration and frenzy? Stock analysts who kept pushing Enron stock?
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Business Ethics violated
Auditing companies consult for the companies they audit. Auditing companies often accept jobs from their client companies Appointment of accounting company by shareholders in practice but by senior management in actual. Board of directors are paid largely in stock Directors can sell early on the basis of insider information
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What needs to be done to avoid these scandals?
Strong laws to avoid money laundering Government control over corporate governance Accounting practices need to be monitored by Government Auditors to be changed every three years Executive accountant shall not be from the auditing firm Proper regulations on stock options buying and selling
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Conclusion and Questions remaining
How to bring accounting firms and financial analysts to integrate CSR norms ? … guarantee that these norms represent reality ? … ensure company governance ? … make companies responsible not only towards shareholders ? … “de-co-opt” media and other organizations ? … increase the integrity of business students and managers ? … diminish the phenomenon of “ethical leveling”, denounced by Kierkegaard in …1850 !?
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Speakers – slidewise Slide 2 – Shainy Slide 3 – Amit Slide 4 – Sathish Slide 5 – Rajesh Slide 6 – Ramesh Slide 7 – Dinesh Slide 8 – Umesh Slide 9 – Himanshu Each one has to prepare speech for 1 min. We will have 2 practise sessions on 9th at 5.15 pm as the presentation might be scheduled for 10th . Study material on what to speak: You can get it from other attached PPTs / PDF sheeets. We need not speak on each item. Pick up key points in your respecitve slides & prepare for a speech of exact 1 min. (it can be slightly more than 1 min, but not less than 1 min) Page 11