List of corporate collapses and scandals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from List of corporate scandals)
Jump to: navigation, search

This is a list of corporate collapses and scandals. A collapse involves a major insolvency or bankruptcy of a failure. A scandal involving allegations of unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. A corporate scandal sometimes involves accounting fraud of some sort. A wave of such scandals swept many United States companies in 2002 (see list at accounting scandals).

Contents

List of major corporate collapses [edit]

The following list of corporations involved major collapses, through the risk of job losses or size of the business, and meant entering into insolvency or bankruptcy, or being nationalised or requiring a non-market loan by a government.

Name HQ Date Business Causes
Medici Bank Italy 01494-01-011494 Banking Owned by the Medici family, it ran up large debts due to the family's profligate spending, extravagant lifestyle, and failure to control the managers, their bank went insolvent.
Mississippi Company France 01720-09-01 Sep 1720 Colonialism Scottish economist John Law convinced the French government to support a monopoly trade venture in Louisiana. He marketed shares based on great wealth, which was highly exaggerated. A speculative bubble grew and then collapsed, and Law was expelled.
South Sea Company United Kingdom 01720-09-01 Sep 1720 Slavery and colonialism After the War of Spanish Succession, the UK signed the Treaty of Utrecht 1713 with Spain, ostensibly allowing it to trade in the seas near South America. In fact, barely any trade took place as Spain renounced the Treaty, however this was concealed on the UK stock market. A speculative bubble saw the share price reach over £1000 in August 1720, but then crash in September. A Parliamentary inquiry revealed fraud among members of the government, including the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer John Aislabie, who was sent to prison.
Overend, Gurney & Co United Kingdom 01866-06-01 June 1866 Banking After Samuel Gurney's retirement, the bank invested heavily in railway stocks. It went public in 1865, but was badly affected by a general fall in stock prices. The Bank of England refused to advance money, and it collapsed. The directors were sued, but exonerated from fraud.
Friedrich Krupp AG Germany 01873-01-011873 Steel, metals Krupp's business over-expanded, and had to take a 30m Mark loan from the Preußische Bank, the Bank of Prussia.
Danatbank Germany 01931-07-1313 July 1931 Banking At the start of the Great Depression, after rumours about the solvency of the Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei, there was a bank run, and Danatbank was forced into insolvency.
Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Corp United States 01963-11-1616 Nov 1963 Commodities Commodities trade Tino De Angelis defrauded clients, including the Bank of America into thinking he was trading vegetable oil. He got loans and made money using the oil as collateral. He showed inspectors tankers of water, with a bit of oil on the surface. When the fraud was exposed, the business collapsed.
Texaco United States 01987-04-1313 April 1987 Oil After a legal battle with Pennzoil, whereby it was found to owe a debt of $10.5 bn, Texaco went into bankruptcy. It was later resurrected and taken over by Chevron.
Polly Peck United Kingdom 01990-10-3030 Oct 1990 Electronics, food, textiles After a raid by the UK Serious Fraud Office in September 1990, the share price collapsed. The CEO Asil Nadir was convicted of stealing the company's money.
Bank of Credit and Commerce International United Kingdom 01991-07-055 July 1991 Banking Breach of US law, by owning another bank. Fraud, money laundering and larceny.
Nordbanken Sweden 01991-01-011991 Banking Following market deregulation, there was a housing price bubble, and it burst. As part of a general rescue as the Swedish banking crisis unfolded, Nordbanken was nationalised for 64 billion kronor. It was later merged with Götabanken, which itself had to write off 37.3% of its creditors, and is now known as Nordea.
Carrian Group Hong Kong 01993-01-011993 Real estate Accounting fraud. An auditor was murdered, an adviser committed suicide. The largest collapse in Hong Kong history.
Barings Bank United Kingdom 01995-02-2626 Feb 1995 Banking An employee in Singapore, Nick Leeson, traded futures, signed off on his own accounts and became increasingly indebted. The London directors were subsequently disqualified, as being unfit to run a company in Re Barings plc (No 5).
Long-Term Capital Management United States 01998-09-2323 Sep 1998 Hedge fund After purporting to have discovered a scientific method of calculating derivative prices, LTCM lost $4.6bn in the first few months of 1998, and required state assistance to remain afloat.
Equitable Life Assurance Society United Kingdom 02000-12-088 Dec 2000 Insurance The insurance company's directors unlawfully used money from people holding guaranteed annuity rate policies to subsidise people with current annuity rate policies. After a House of Lords judgment in Equitable Life Assurance Society v Hyman, the Society closed. Though never technically insolvent, the UK government set up a compensation scheme for policyholders under the Equitable Life (Payments) Act 2010.
HIH Insurance Australia 02001-03-1515 March 2001 Insurance In early 2000, after increase in size of the business, it was determined that the insurance company's solvency was marginal, and a small asset price change could see the insurance company become insolvent. It did. Director Rodney Adler, CEO Ray Williams and others were sentenced to prison for fraudulent activity.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company United States 02001-04-066 April 2001 Energy After a change in regulation in California, the company determined it was unable to continue delivering power, and despite the California Public Utility Commission's efforts, it went into bankruptcy, leaving homes without energy. It emerged again in 2004.
One.Tel Australia 02001-05-2929 May 2001 Telecomms After becoming one of the largest Australian public companies, losses of $290m were reported, the share price crashed, and it entered administration. In ASIC v Rich[1] the directors were found not to have been guilty of negligence.
WorldCom United States 02001-07-2121 July 2001 Telecomms After falling share prices, and a failed share buy back scheme, it was found that the directors had used fraudulent accounting methods to push up the stock price. Rebranded MCI Inc, it emerged from bankruptcy in 2004 and the assets were bought by Verizon.
Enron United States 02001-11-2828 Nov 2001 Energy Directors and executives fraudulently concealed large losses in Enron's projects. A number were sentenced to prison.[2][3]
Chiquita Brands Int United States 02001-11-2828 Nov 2001 Food Accumulated debts, after a series of accusations relating to breaches of labour and environmental standards. It entered a pre-packaged insolvency, and emerged with similar management in 2002.[4]
Kmart United States 02002-01-2222 Jan 2002 Retail After difficult competition, the store was put into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, but soon re-emerged.
Adelphia Communications United States 02002-02-1313 Feb 2002 Cable television Internal corruption. The Directors were sentenced to prison.[3][5]
Arthur Andersen United States 02002-06-1515 June 2002 Accounting A US court convicted Andersen of obstruction of justice by shredding documents relating to Enron scandal.
Bre-X Canada 02002-01-012002 Mining After widespread reports that Bre-X had found a gold mine in Indonesia, the stories were found to be fraudulent.
Parmalat Italy 02003-12-2424 Dec 2003 Food The company's finance directors concealed large debts.
MG Rover Group United Kingdom 02005-04-1515 April 2005 Automobiles After diminishing demand, and getting a £6.5m loan from the UK government in April 2005, the company went into administration. After the loss of 30,000 jobs, Nanjing Automobile Group bought the company's assets.
Bayou Hedge Fund Group United States 02005-09-2929 Sep 2005 Hedge fund Samuel Israel III defrauded his investors into thinking there were higher returns, and orchestrated fake audits. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a court complaint and the business was shut down after the directors were caught attempting to send $100m into overseas bank accounts.
Refco United States 02005-10-1717 Oct 2005 Brokering After becoming a public company in August 2005, it was revealed that Phillip R. Bennett, the company CEO and chair, had concealed $430m of bad debts. Its underwriters were Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America Corp. The company entered Chapter 11 and Bennett was sentenced to 16 years prison.
Bear Stearns United Kingdom 02008-03-1414 Mar 2008 Banking Bearn Stearns invested in the sub-prime mortgage market from 2003 after the US government had begun to deregulate consumer protection and derivative trading. The business collapsed as more people began to be unable to meet mortgage obligations. After a stock price high of $172 a share, it was bought by JP Morgan for $2 a share on 16 March 2008, with a $29bn loan facility guaranteed by the US Federal Reserve.
Northern Rock United Kingdom 02008-02-2222 Feb 2008 Banking Northern Rock had invested in the international markets for sub-prime mortgage debt, and as more and more people defaulted on their home loans in the US, the Rock's business collapsed. It triggered the first bank run in the UK since Overend, Gurney & Co in 1866, when it asked the UK government for assistance. It was nationalised, and then sold to Virgin Money in 2012.
Lehman Brothers United States 02008-09-1515 Sep 2008 Banking Lehman Brothers' financial strategy in from 2003 was to invest heavily in mortgage debt, in markets which were being deregulated from consumer protection by the US government. Losses mounted, and Lehman Brothers was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the US government refused to extend a loan. The collapse triggered a global financial market meltdown. Barclays, Nomura and Bain Capital purchased the assets which were not indebted.
Washington Mutual United States 02008-09-2626 Sep 2008 Banking Following the sub-prime mortgage crisis, there was a bank run on WaMu, and pressure from the FDIC forced closure.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group United Kingdom 02008-10-1313 Oct 2008 Banking Following the takeover of ABN-Amro, and the collapse of Lehman Bros, RBS found itself insolvent as the international credit market seized up. 58% of the shares were bought by the UK government.
ABN-Amro Netherlands 02008-10-01 Oct 2008 Banking After a takeover battle between Barclays and RBS, which RBS won, ABN-Amro was found to be heavily indebted due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It was split and taken under government ownership by the UK and Netherlands.
Nortel Canada 02009-01-1414 Jan 2009 Telecomms Following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and allegations over excessive executive pay, demand for products dropped.
Anglo-Irish Bank Republic of Ireland 02009-01-1515 Jan 2009 Banking After the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the bank was forced to be nationalised by the Irish government.
General Motors United States 02009-06-011 June 2009 Automobiles Following the financial crisis, a downturn in demand meant lower sales and profits. After going into Chapter 11 the US government backed GM with a series of loans in order to save the industry's jobs.
Arcandor Germany 02009-06-099 June 2009 Retail After struggling to maintain business levels at its brand names Karstadt and KaDeWe, Arcandor sought help from the German government, and then filed for insolvency.
Schlecker Germany 02012-01-2323 Jan 2012 Retail After continual losses mounting from 2011 Schlecker, with 52,000 employees, was forced into insolvency, though continued to run.
Dynegy United States 02012-07-066 July 2012 Energy After a series of attempted takeover bids, and a finding of fraud in a subsidiary's purchase of another subsidiary, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It emerged from bankruptcy on 2 October 2012.
AIG[3] United States 02008-09-1616 Sep 2008 Insurance Out of $441 billion worth of securities originally rated AAA, as the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, unfolded AIG found it held $57.8 billion of these products. It was forced to take a 24 month credit facility from the US Federal Reserve Board.
02013-01-01

List of scandals without insolvency [edit]

See also [edit]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ [2009] NSWSC 1229
  2. ^ a b Jerry W. Markham, A financial history of modern U.S. corporate scandals: from Enron to reform 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cohen, Jeffrey R., Ding, Yuan, Lesage, Cédric and Stolowy, Hervé (August 1, 2008), Managers' Behavior in Corporate Fraud, SSRN 1160076 
  4. ^ 'Chiquita files bankruptcy under pre-arranged plan' (11 November 2001) USA Today
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Penelope Patsuris (26 August 2002), The Corporate Scandal Sheet, Forbes 
  6. ^ Miriam Hechler Baer (2008), "Corporate Policing and Corporate Governance: What Can We Learn from Hewlett-Packard's Pretexting Scandal", University of Cincinnati Law Review 77 (523) 

Further reading [edit]

External links [edit]
Aspects of corporations
Types of fraud
Financial-related
Business-related
Family-related
Government-related
Other types
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_corporate_collapses_and_scandals&oldid=552798090"