The Enron Accounting Scandal

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Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and Services Company in Houston, Texas. Enron have quickly expanded into creating a market for itself – the energy trade. Enron had about 22,000 staff before its bankruptcy in late 2001. In addition, Enron was one of the world's leading energy companies in the United State. Their business included some long term investment and no short term returns to the company. Enron’s auditor was also accused of conducting business in an unethical manner in his attempt to retain the loyalty of Enron executives. At that time laws and SEC regulations allowed firms like Arthur Andersen to provide consulting services to a company and then turn around and provide the audited report about the financial results of these consulting activities, therefore making an “independent audit” by Arthur Andersen independent in name only. The Accounting Scandal It was revealed that it’s reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known as the "Enron scandal". The accounting techniques used to influence Enron’s financial statements were a combination of many different complex tactics. The first tactic was using ghost companies (SPEs) which they would transfer money to and from and different banks which would issue these ghost company loans(Cahan, 2009). The end result was an extraordinarily complex set of financial statements which disguised the loans as cash flow, using their “independent SPEs” to incur Enron’s losses on paper and “create” profits. “Mark to market” allowed it to increase the value of present assets held by the company (e.g., long -term contracts for the sale of energy) by estimating future market prices (Joseph, 2003). Enron, as a public company that was faced pressure from outside, market pressures and sources of governance. In
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