...Adelphia Scandal Andrew Hurt RES/351 – Business Research John Gilpin 1/20/14 In July of 2004, John and Timothy Rigas (father and son) had been found guilty by a federal jury on two counts of bank fraud, as well as 15 counts of security fraud. John Rigas was the founder of Adelphia communications, and his son Timothy was the chief financial officer. The two of them were found guilty on conspiracy to steal millions of dollars from the company. At one point the Adelphia was founded in 1952 by both John Rigas and his sibling Gus for a mere $300. Adelphia is the Greek word meaning brothers. In 1986 the company is consolidated with other cable properties and the company is then taken public. In 1989 Adelphia Media Services is created to aid in advertising on different fronts. Adelphia Cable Corporation was the largest cable television provider in the nation before it disappeared. Adelphia also had the nice façade of social responsibility by providing educational institutions with cable services at no charge, sponsoring sporting and cultural events, and supporting charities that needed assistance. John and Timothy had very different motives though. In 1991 Adelphia Business Solutions is launched to provide various communications within the business community such as long distance telephone service, high-speed internet, and even voice messaging. In 1994 Adelphia was experiencing rapid acquisition, and by 1998 had over 2 million subscribers for its customer base. John Rigas had...
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...Arthur Gharakhanian Adelphia (A) ACCU-620 Brandman University Week 3, Assignment 1 November 7th, 2012 Adelphia Introduction Founded in 1952 by John Rigas, Adelphia Communications Corporation was a "family" business. John Rigas (father) was the chairman and CEO, Tim Rigas (son) served on the board and was the CFO, and Michael Rigas (son) was EVP and a board member along with James Rigas (son) (USA Today, 2004). Together they owned the majority of Adelphia's stock and occupied the majority of the seats on the board. These two components would be key in the fraud that would ensue. The personal lives of the Rigas’ would be the root cause of their need for cash and the reason behind the fraud they would commit (USA Today, 2004). The Scandal The government described it as ''one of the most extensive financial frauds ever to take place at a public company" (Sorkin, 2004). The Rigas' used company money to construct a private golf course, own several private jets, and purchase multiple several luxury homes. They were able to do this by establishing "complicated cash-management systems to spread money around to various family-owned entities and as a cover for stealing about $100 million for themselves" (AP, 2005). In order to keep investment money flowing in, they would manipulate the books to meet analyst expectations, thus inflating the stock price and at times they would mix Adelphia's funds with their own private funds. Upon realizing the amount of funds...
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...Adephia Scandal 1 Abstract The purpose of the paper is to explain deontological ethics, including Kant's Categorical Imperative, and their relationship to business ethics. I will explain how deontological ethics and Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative more specifically relate to the two primary business ethics violations in the Adephia scandal. ADELPHIA SCANDAL The Adephia Scandal orchstrated by a family of Business men that had on goal in mind, which was tor created family wealth at all cost. The Rigas Family Members of Adelphia’s included John Rigas, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO); Timothy Rigas, John’s son, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Accounting Officer, and Treasurer; Michael Rigas, John’s son, Executive Vice President for Operations and Secretary; and James Rigas, John’s son, Executive Vice President for Strategic Planning. On December 31, 1999, five of the ten members of Adelphia’s board of directors were Rigas family members, John, his three sons, and Peter Venetis, John’s son-in-law. In 2002, John J. Rigas resigned as Adelphia’s CEO, Timothy J. Rigas resigned as CFO, and the Rigas family relinquished control of the company as John, Timothy, Michael, and James Rigas resigned as directors. John Rigas and sons Timothy and Michael were arrested on conspiracy charges. The company was founded in 1952 in Coudersport, Pennsylvania and incorporated in 1972. By 1998...
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...Adelphia Communications scandal By Insert name Insert institution Adelphia Communications scandal Introduction Adelphia Communications Company was a television cable company whose headquarters centered in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It ranked as the fifth most prestigious cable companies in United States. John Rigas is the founder of the company. The company was highly respected until an infamous scandal ensued following claims of bankrupt in 2002, at which time its headquarters relocated to greenwood Village, Colorado. According to Jefferson (2007), after the ensuing controversial legal proceedings ended, the company’s assets were liquefied. Time Warner Cable acquired most of the company’s assets in 2006. LFC auctioned the rest of the assets. Pioneer Telephone bought the existing Adelphia Communications Corporation’s telephone business skeleton, which had over 110,000 registered customers across 27 states in United States of America. The scandal The scandal is about carefully concealed fraudulent activities involving the company and the Rigas family, the founder. Adelphia Communications corporate made an agreement with the Rigas family that placed the two parties as guarantors of each other. Investigations following the file for bankruptcy uncovered shocking revelations of the operations involving the two parties: the company and Rigas family. Apparently, Rigas family borrowed heavily from the company for their own personal gain, leading to a deficit of billions of...
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...Adelphia Communications scandal Matthew Tassin Trident University Ethics 501 Introduction Adelphia Communications Company was a television cable company whose headquarters centered in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It ranked as the fifth most prestigious cable companies in United States. John Rigas is the founder of the company. The company was highly respected until an infamous scandal ensued following claims of bankrupt in 2002, at which time its headquarters relocated to greenwood Village, Colorado. According to Jefferson (2007), after the ensuing controversial legal proceedings ended, the company’s assets were liquefied. Time Warner Cable acquired most of the company’s assets in 2006. LFC auctioned the rest of the assets. Pioneer Telephone bought the existing Adelphia Communications Corporation’s telephone business skeleton, which had over 110,000 registered customers across 27 states in United States of America. The scandal The scandal is about carefully concealed fraudulent activities involving the company and the Rigas family, the founder. Adelphia Communications corporate made an agreement with the Rigas family that placed the two parties as guarantors of each other. Investigations following the file for bankruptcy uncovered shocking revelations of the operations involving the two parties: the company and Rigas family. Apparently, Rigas family borrowed heavily from the company for their own personal gain, leading to a deficit of billions of dollars in the company’s...
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...Running head: Adelphia Communications Scandal TUI UNIVERSITY Errol Hammonds Case #1 ETH 501 Business Ethics and Deontology Dr. Bonnie Adams 21 October 2013 Adelphia Communications Scandal Adelphia – which means “brothers’ in Greek – used to be one of America’s largest cable companies. John Rigas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rigas] founded the company and served as CEO and chairman. His son Tim had the position of Chief Financial Officer and two other sons were VPs. John Rigas also has a son-in-law Peter Venetis who was also a board member. Of the board’s nine seats, the Rigas family held five of them. They also owned the majority of class B super voting shares that gave the family majority voting rights. It is how the family maintained control even after the company went public. In the summer of 2002, three members of the Rigas family were arrested and charged with looting the nation's sixth-largest cable-television company. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against the company accusing it of fraud. The charges marked the latest effort by the federal government to crack down on corporate malfeasance as public confidence and the financial markets have been battered by seemingly relentless disclosures of financial shenanigans. The scandal was discovered when the Rigases disclosed that Adelphia was responsible for more than $2 billion in loans to family-owned entities. Outside board members took control and...
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...of time. It can start with anyone stealing a few dollars taken here and there and then it can evolve into intricate plans which can defraud the companies millions, even billions of dollars. This is something that happened with the Adelphia Communications Corp. in the early 2000's. John Rigas, founder and former CEO of Adelphia, and his two sons, Timothy and Michael Rigas, along with the former assistant treasurer, Michael Mulcahey, were all arrested for defrauding Adelphia out of millions of dollars. All four of the defendants were charged with conspiracy, bank, securities and wire fraud. Only John Rigas and his and his son Timothy were actually found guilty on 18 out of the 23 charges filed against them and were facing sentences up to 30 years in jail. Michael Rigas was found not guilty on six of the charges, but the jury was undecided on the other 17. As for Mulcahey, he was found not guilty on all 23 charges (Adelphia Founder). "John Rigas is serving 15 years in a federal prison, while his son Timothy is serving a 20 year sentence" (John). Adelphia all started in "1951 when John Rigas paid $72,000 for a movie theater that was no longer being used in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. The next year he spent $300 for a local cable franchise" (Adelphia Timeline). That's all it took for him to start up a company that little did he know at the time that it would become a multi-million dollar corporation. His brother, Gus Rigas, ended up joining in on the franchise in 1954. Once Rigas...
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...The story of the Adelphia Scandal begins in 1952 with purchase of a cable network company by John Rigas. By the year 1972, the purchased cable network had evolved into Adelphia Communications Corporation. By the late 1990s, Adelphia had acquired Century Communications and eventually became the sixth largest cable company, servicing over 5 million subscribers. Adelphia was a family owned and operated business. Rigas family members were the majority of Adelphia’s board members and controlled a majority of the organizations voting stock. John Rigas held the position of Founder and Chairman, his three sons held key management positions such as, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice Presidents. Like several other businesses owned and managed by family members, Adelphia feel victim to poor ethical decision-making, managerial deception, and social irresponsibility. John Rigas was well known for his extremely lavish lifestyle. The Rigas family indulged in things such as several luxury properties, private jets, leisure construction projects, and even majority ownership of a professional league hockey team. The extravagant life style enjoyed by the Rigas family was primarily funded by Adelphia Communication Corporation. Unknown to stockholders and nonfamily related board members, Adelphia had financed over $2 billion in loans to the Rigas family. The Rigas family had started several private business ventures using Adelphia as a partnership , which resulted in the Rigas family...
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...Adelphia Communications: A Family’s Power It started as a striving business dedicated to providing cable service to the public. What became of Adelphia Communications would be just another example of the vicious act known as fraud. Fraud is the intentional act of misleading others about financial information for profit, personal gain, or other dishonest advantage. As the new millennium dawned 14 years ago, we saw an unraveling of numerous fraudulent activities by organizations large and small. One of these organizations that became perpetrators of fraud was Adelphia Communications. During its existence, Adelphia Communications quickly became one of the largest cable companies in the U.S. Adelphia was unique and differed from several other successful corporations at the time, for one special reason: it was family generated. In fact, it became a quintessential example of how a family owned business can grow into a successful publicly traded business. However, the firm family which gave Adelphia Communications its tremendous success, quickly became the cause for its torrential downfall. John and his brother Gus Rigas founded Adelphia Communications in 1972 through the purchase of their first cable company Adelphia Cablevision Inc. in 1952 for $300. In Greek terms, “Adelphia” means brothers; clearly, John and Gus had long-term visions of their company being a family generated organization. Being the founders, the brothers seemed convinced to conduct the business how they wished...
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...Firstname Lastname Instructor’s Name Course Number 20 July 2015 Adelphia Communications Adelphia is the 6th biggest cable television provider in the United States and, with various subsidiaries, gives services of cable television and local telephone service to customers in 32 states and Puerto Rico. Adelphia means "brothers" in Greek. It used to be one of America's largest cable companies. John Rigas established the company and served as CEO and chairman. John's son Tim was CFO, and Tim's brothers, Michael, and James were Vice Presidents. All four were council members, along with John's son-in-law Peter Venetis. The Rigases also had 100% possession of class B super-voting shares, which granted the family majority voting rights. That's how they maintained and controlled the board even after the company went unrestricted. Voting configuration was dysfunctional. That alone triggered big red flags for institutional investors. But nobody paid attention to red flags. (Tobak) The complete lack of independent oversight gave the family carte blanche to cheat the company blind. They used company funds to buy back Adelphia stock and reserve other family enterprises, including a golf course, vacation homes, apartments on the upper east side of Manhattan, corporate jets, a fleet of cars, production of a film by John's daughter, and even ownership of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team. On an earnings conference call, Merrill Lynch analyst Oren Cohen wanted to know how the family could...
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...Date: April 3 2016 Adelphia Communication Corporation Executive Summary: Adelphia Communications Corporation was founded in 1952 with a $300 license by John Rigas,-(Founder), Willaim T. Schleyer (Chairman and CEO), Ronald Cooper (President and COO) and Vanessa Wittman (EVP and CFO) in the town of Coudersport with its main headquarters at Greenwood Village, Colorado. The company is to Cable Television and Internet Services Provider with 275 employees. Their slogan says that “Get. Watch. Do What you want.” Adelphia backed $2.3 billion worth of personal loans to the Rigases. Rigas Management commingled Adelphia funds with family funds causing Adelphia to fund non-corporate projects, such as personal loans, real estate transactions (Purchase of Manhattan apartments for private use and Purchase of land for a private golf course), cash advances to the Buffalo Sabres, and $252 million to pay margin calls, or demands for cash payments on loans for which the family had put up Adelphia stock as collateral. The Rigases used Adelphia’s line of credit for personal purchases. The Rigases doctored financial records at Adelphia and created sham transactions and phony companies to inflate the firm's earnings and to conceal is mounting debts. Upon realizing the extent of funds taken, Tim Rigas “limited” the amount of Adelphia’s funds his father could take to $1000000/month. The Adelphia Communications scandal broke in 2002 when a footnote in a routine quarterly...
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...Adelphia Communications’ Bankruptcy Bankruptcy The case talks about the situation Adelphia went through after the governance problem and fraud they had that led them to bankruptcy. Adelphia being a family owned company; by April 2005 they decided to sell out the remaining assets of the company to the one of the other 3 big cable companies; Time Warner, Comcast and Cablevision; each one of them offered different amount in the bid, nevertheless the company had to analyze how certain each offers were, how probable was any of them to pull out the offers as well as what to do with the money they would get in case the judge let them do the sell. Family Control Adelphia was founded and managed by Rigas family, the case talks about how the company after 1985 decided to go public in order to acquire the capital investment to expand and become one of the biggest cable providers in the country. Nevertheless the Rigas family managed to keep almost full control of the company by keeping special type stocks with decision making power in the board. The company kept being managed by the funding family as well as the family keeping some of the cable assets for themselves in separate private partnerships and continuing to buy properties privately as well as for the company. The case explains how the privately owned assets of the family were managed by already-public Adelphia Corp by some management agreements and with this the expenses of such assets were consolidated with the expenses...
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...2012) researched that “financial press open full articles and documents facts about financial scandals at Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, AIG, Adelphia Communication and Cable and more. As the scandal came to light people did not play the stock market if they believe that the stock prices were rigged.” Weygandt, Kimel, Kieso (2012) researched that; “the United States government regulators and lawmakers were very concerned that the economy would suffers if investors lost confidence in corporate accounting because of unethical financial reporting. In response, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley it is intent is to reduce unethical corporate behavior and decrease the likelihood of future corporate scandals. As a result of SOX, top management must now certify the accuracy of financial information. In addition, penalties for fraudulent financial activity are much more severe. SOX increased the independence of the outside auditors who review the accuracy of corporate financial statements and increased the oversights role of boards of directors. The effective financial reporting depends on sound ethical behavior.” Accounting Ethics 3 2. Based on your research, describe the organization, the accounting ethical breach and the impact to the organization related to ethical breach. The Adelphia Cable and Communication ethical breach that impact the organization. Goff (2002) researched...
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...that there were actually more cons than pros. * * As mentioned in the report LIBOR has been the catalyst for fraud and unfair play in the past years. This being said I cannot see this reform in LIBOR go the right way for either party. The FED might have already lost the trust of many people around the world with the scandals of late that have taken place. Many people were hurt when they took out loans and LIBOR was artificially high. However, when LIBOR was artificially low people paid less than they should have. This is a small example on the controversy of whether or not LIBOR should be reformed or completely thrown out the window. * * LIBOR is a very important index, which serves as a benchmark for derivatives. Being the most widely used interested rate in the world, it is not easy to just throw it out the window, as many people who were on the brunt of the scandal would wish. * * I believe that LIBOR is not as risk-free as we think it is. I believe that the scandals that were taken place proved that. Many people lost their savings and not only were the savings lost, but the banks that were the cause of the scandal were stealing it. This, I believe speaks for itself to answer the question if LIBOR is as risk-free as we think it is. I believe we were led to believe that is was a fixed fair rate, however we have seen that it can be manipulated and artificially fixed in ways in which we can lose our money. This is a big reason why I believe...
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...scandalous and creates wide seethe and uproar from the public who are the ultimate victims of these scandals. For many reformers and speakers it may take ages to bring a matter of public concern in front of people, which when scandalized became notoriously famous without any help. For example wiki leaks had generated mass curiosity around the world about the facts and events which were otherwise completely obscure and esoteric to general public. With increased freedom of the forth estate everything is out in the open ,all political scandals ,social scandals and even financial scandals are watched ,scrutinized and are brought to justice. In the 21st centaury where social networking has dissolved all the known physical boundaries, a scandal of one country is a popular talk of another continent, people discuss ,debate and provide solution to the problem which arose because of the so called scandal, which we can never imagine happening half a century ago. The Bernie Madoffs in famous embezzlement scandal has created waves of dissatisfaction among the masses, and demanded higher level of probe and investigation in the matter. The Italian prime minister’s sex scandal has stumped the world and raised questions about the moral conduct about the leader. No reformer or speakers could have generated such wide spread awareness about a issue or a problem within the society .Thus scandals play a major roles in generating general awareness and finding root cause for a problem ,which...
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