The Bre-X scandal is the perfect example of a true fraud that results from dishonest and deceitful business ethics, morals, and principles. The Bre-X scandal is considered to be the biggest mining and gold scandal of all time, and one of the biggest stock scandals in Canadian history. The Bre-X scandal significantly damaged the Canadian Financial Markets and caused substantial reductions in consumer buying and trading confidence, which caused a considerable amount of damage to the Canadian economy. Subsequent to the collapse of Bre-X in 1997, its stocks and shares became worthless and left investors with significant losses. The Bre-X scandal began in March 1993, subsequent to the company purchasing a large mining site in Busang, Indonesia (on Borneo). Subsequent to Bre-X purchasing the mining site in Busang, it boasted that it was sitting on the largest known gold deposit in the world. In October 1995, Bre-X announced that it Continue reading
Financial Scams
Case Study: WorldCom Accounting Scandal
Founded initially as a small company named Long Distance Discount Services in 1983, it merged with Advantage Companies Inc to eventually become WorldCom Inc, naming its CEO as Bernard Ebbers.WorldCom achieved its position as a significant player in the telecommunications industry through the successful completion of 65 acquisitions spending almost $60 billion between 1991 and 1997, whilst also accumulating $41 billion in debt. During the Internet boom WorldCom’s stock rose from pennies per share to over $60 a share as ‘Wall Street investment banks, analysts and brokers began to discover WorldCom’s value and made “strong buy recommendations” to investors.’ During the 1990’s WorldCom evolved into the ‘second-largest long distance phone company in the US’ mainly due to its aggressive acquisition strategy. A cycle became apparent in the marketplace where an acquisition was seen as a positive move by the analysts leading to higher stock prices of WorldCom. Consequently this allowed Continue reading
Case Study: The Collapse of Enron
Enron Corporation is an energy trading, natural gas, and electric utilities company located in Houston, Texas that had around 21,000 employees by mid-2001, before it went bankrupt. Its revenue in the year 2000 was more than $100 billion and named as “America’s most innovative companies for six consecutive years by Fortune. Enron was a company that was able to profit by providing the delivery of gas to utility companies and businesses at the fair value market price. Enron was listed as the seventh largest company in the United States and had the domination in the trading of communications, power, and weather securities. In 2002, the company used to be a member of the top 100 fortunes companies but later on after facing an accounting scandal, the company started to collapse. The scandal of Enron has been the largest corporate scandal in history, and has become emblematic of institutionalized and well-planned Continue reading
Securities Scams In India
Securities Scam 1992 In April 1992, press reports indicated that there was a shortfall in the Government Securities held by the State Bank of India. Investigations uncovered the tip of an iceberg, later called the securities scam, involving misappropriation of funds to the tune of over Rs. 3500 Crores. The scam engulfed top executives of large nationalized banks, foreign banks and financial institutions, brokers, bureaucrats and politicians: The functioning of the money market and the stock market was thrown in disarray. The tainted shares were worthless as they could not be sold. This created a panic among investors and brokers and led to a prolonged closure of the stock exchanges along with a precipitous drop in the price of shares. Soon after the discovery of the scam, the stock prices dropped by over 40%, wiping out market value to the tune of Rs. 100,000 crores. The normal settlement process in Continue reading
Money Laundering
Money laundering is a process used by offenders who attempt to conceal the true origin and ownership of the proceeds; these proceeds are results of criminal activities. It allows them to maintain control over the proceeds and provide a legitimate cover for their source of income. The laundering of the proceeds that result from criminal activity is done through the financial system. The people who are involved in such an action exploit the facilities of the financial institutions of the world. Such an action is done easily under these conditions of free movement of capital. Banks involved in such actions risk to lose their market reputation. Although the observable fact of money laundering has taken on increase attention, from every country in the world its notion is still a controversy in the criminological phraseology. In anticipation of the concept of money laundering phrase, which has almost been talked about and Continue reading
Case Study on Corporate Governance: Enron Scam
Enron is an energy-based company in Houston, Texas that deals with the energy trade on international and domestic based. Enron Corp. Is one of the world’s largest energy, commodities and Services Company was created out of merger of two major gas pipe line in 1985. Enron was created by merge between Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Houston’s gas’s CEO Kenneth lay headed the merger of the two companies. After that Kenneth lay become the CEO of Enron. Earlier Enron was Enron was solely involved with the distribution and transmission of electricity and gas of United States. In merger, Enron incurred a large amount of debt, and which resulted deregulation, after this Enron was no longer had the rights of its pipelines. The company had to find a way to generate profits and cash flow. Kenneth lay hired Jeffrey Skilling to work for Enron as an accountant. Skilling suggested the practice Continue reading