TOP 10
CORPORATE SCANDAL
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
https://www.accounting-degree.org/scandals/
WASTE MANAGEMENT SCANDAL
(1998)
Company: Houston-based publicly traded waste management company
What happened: Reported $1.7 billion in fake earnings.
Main players: Founder/CEO/Chairman Dean L. Buntrock and other top executives; Arthur Andersen
Company (auditors)
How they did it: The company allegedly falsely increased the depreciation time length for their
property, plant and equipment on the balance sheets.
How they got caught: A new CEO and management team went through the books.
Penalties: Settled a shareholder class-action suit for $457 million. SEC fined Arthur Andersen $7 million.
Fun fact: After the scandal, new CEO A. Maurice Meyers set up an anonymous company hotline where
employees could report dishonest or improper behavior.
ENRON SCANDAL (2001)
Company: Houston-based commodities, energy and service corporation
What happened: Shareholders lost $74 billion, thousands of employees and
investors lost their retirement accounts, and many employees lost their jobs.
Main players: CEO Jeff Skilling and former CEO Ken Lay.
How they did it: Kept huge debts off balance sheets.
How they got caught: Turned in by internal whistleblower Sherron Watkins; high stock prices
fueled external suspicions.
Penalties: Lay died before serving time; Skilling got 24 years in prison. The company filed for
bankruptcy. Arthur Andersen was found guilty of fudging Enron's accounts.
Fun fact: Fortune Magazine named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" 6 years in a row
prior to the scandal.
WORLDCOM SCANDAL (2002)
Company: Telecommunications company; now MCI, Inc.
What happened: Inflated assets by as much as $11 billion, leading to 30,000 lost
jobs and $180 billion in losses for investors.
Main player: CEO Bernie Ebbers
How he did it: Underreported line costs by capitalizing rather than expensing and
inflated revenues with fake accounting entries.
How he got caught: WorldCom's internal auditing department uncovered $3.8 billion of fraud.
Penalties: CFO was fired, controller resigned, and the company filed for bankruptcy.
Ebbers sentenced to 25 years for fraud, conspiracy and filing false documents with
regulators.
Fun fact: Within weeks of the scandal, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, introducing
the most sweeping set of new business regulations since the 1930s.
TYCO SCANDAL (2002)
Company: New Jersey-based blue-chip Swiss security systems.
What happened: CEO and CFO stole $150 million and inflated company income by $500 million.
Main players: CEO Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO Mark Swartz.
How they did it: Siphoned money through unapproved loans and fraudulent stock sales. Money
was smuggled out of company disguised as executive bonuses or benefits.
How they got caught: SEC and Manhattan D.A. investigations uncovered questionable accounting practices,
including large loans made to Kozlowski that were then forgiven.
Penalties: Kozlowski and Swartz were sentenced to 8-25 years in prison. A class-action lawsuit forced Tyco to
pay $2.92 billion to investors.
Fun fact: At the height of the scandal Kozlowski threw a $2 million birthday party for his wife on a Mediterranean
island, complete with a Jimmy Buffet performance.
HEALTHSOUTH SCANDAL (2003)
Company: Largest publicly traded health care company in the U.S.
What happened: Earnings numbers were allegedly inflated $1.4 billion to meet stockholder
expectations.
Main player: CEO Richard Scrushy.
How he did it: Allegedly told underlings to make up numbers and transactions from 1996-
2003.
How he got caught: Sold $75 million in stock a day before the company posted a huge
loss, triggering SEC suspicions.
Penalties: Scrushy was acquitted of all 36 counts of accounting fraud, but convicted of
bribing the governor of Alabama, leading to a 7-year prison sentence.
Fun fact: Scrushy now works as a motivational speaker and maintains his innocence.
FREDDIE MAC (2003)
Company: Federally backed mortgage-financing giant.
What happened: $5 billion in earnings were misstated.
Main players: President/COO David Glenn, Chairman/CEO Leland Brendsel,
ex-CFO Vaughn Clarke, former senior VPs Robert Dean and Nazir Dossani.
How they did it: Intentionally misstated and understated earnings on the
books.
How they got caught: An SEC investigation.
Penalties: $125 million in fines and the firing of Glenn, Clarke and Brendsel.
Fun fact: 1 year later, the other federally backed mortgage financing company,
Fannie Mae, was caught in an equally stunning accounting scandal.
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP (AIG) SCANDAL
(2005)
Company: Multinational insurance corporation.
What happened: Massive accounting fraud to the tune of $3.9 billion was alleged, along with bid-rigging and
stock price manipulation.
Main player: CEO Hank Greenberg.
How he did it: Allegedly booked loans as revenue, steered clients to insurers with whom AIG had payoff
agreements, and told traders to inflate AIG stock price.
How he got caught: SEC regulator investigations, possibly tipped off by a whistleblower.
Penalties: Settled with the SEC for $10 million in 2003 and $1.64 billion in 2006, with a Louisiana pension
fund for $115 million, and with 3 Ohio pension funds for $725 million. Greenberg was fired, but has faced no
criminal charges.
Fun fact: After posting the largest quarterly corporate loss in history in 2008 ($61.7 billion) and getting bailed
out with taxpayer dollars, AIG execs rewarded themselves with over $165 million in bonuses.
LEHMAN BROTHERS SCANDAL (2008)
Company: Global financial services firm.
What happened: Hid over $50 billion in loans disguised as sales.
Main players: Lehman executives and the company's auditors, Ernst & Young.
How they did it: Allegedly sold toxic assets to Cayman Island banks with the understanding
that they would be bought back eventually. Created the impression Lehman had $50 billion
more cash and $50 billion less in toxic assets than it really did.
How they got caught: Went bankrupt.
Penalties: Forced into the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. SEC didn't prosecute due
to lack of evidence.
Fun fact: In 2007 Lehman Brothers was ranked the #1 "Most Admired Securities Firm" by Fortune
Magazine.
BERNIE MADOFF SCANDAL (2008)
Company: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was a Wall Street investment
firm founded by Madoff.
What happened: Tricked investors out of $64.8 billion through the largest Ponzi scheme
in history.
Main players: Bernie Madoff, his accountant, David Friehling, and Frank DiPascalli.
How they did it: Investors were paid returns out of their own money or that
of other investors rather than from profits.
How they got caught: Madoff told his sons about his scheme and they reported him to the
SEC. He was arrested the next day.
Penalties: 150 years in prison for Madoff + $170 billion restitution. Prison time for
Friehling and DiPascalli.
Fun fact: Madoff's fraud was revealed just months after the 2008 U.S. financial collapse.
SATYAM SCANDAL (2009)
Company: Indian IT services and back-office accounting firm.
What happened: Falsely boosted revenue by $1.5 billion.
Main player: Founder/Chairman Ramalinga Raju.
How he did it: Falsified revenues, margins and cash balances to the tune of 50
billion rupees.
How he got caught: Admitted the fraud in a letter to the company's board of
directors.
Penalties: Raju and his brother charged with breach of trust, conspiracy, cheating
and falsification of records. Released after the Central Bureau of Investigation failed
to file charges on time.
Fun fact: In 2011 Ramalinga Raju's wife published a book of his existentialist, free-
verse poetry.
https://qz.com/india/379877/the-satyam-scandal-how-indias-biggest-corporate-fraud-unfolded/
