Case Assignment #1 – Accounting Fraud at WorldCom 1. Discuss the fraud at WorldCom in terms of the objective of financial reporting. How was the objective subverted by the actions taken by the managers of WorldCom? A. To begin, the primary objective of financial reporting for most companies is to provide useful information to capital providers. Essentially, the objective is “to assist in the efficient functioning of economies and the efficient allocation of resources in capital markets”
Words: 1388 - Pages: 6
Accounting Fraud at WorldCom WorldCom grew rapidly in the 1980-90s through its various inorganic acquisitions – the resultant was a corporation with a hotchpotch of diverse and unaligned cultures. Exacerbating the situation, the Management (including the Board of Directors and CEO Ebbers) did little,if anything, to address the multiplicity of deontological and consequential ethics coexisting at WorldCom. CEO Ebbers in fact called an internal effort to create a corporate code of conduct a “colossal
Words: 1067 - Pages: 5
Assignment # 3 WorldCom Accounting Fraud The purpose of this paper is to discuss the aspects of the WorldCom accounting scandal and the effects that this scandal had on the accounting world as we know it. We will discuss the corporate culture at WorldCom and how it contributed to the accounting fraud, how the CEO’s desire to be the #1 stock on Wall Street contributed to the fraud, pressures on accountants to book and release accruals to meet expectations, pros and cons of whistleblowing
Words: 291 - Pages: 2
S. KAPLAN D A VI D KIR O N Accounting Fraud at WorldCom WorldCom could not have failed as a result of the actions of a limited number of individuals. Rather, there was a broad breakdown of the system of internal controls, corporate governance and individual responsibility, all of which worked together to create a culture in which few persons took responsibility until it was too late . — Richard Thornburgh, former U.S. attorney general1 On July 21, 2002, WorldCom Group, a telecommunications company
Words: 8351 - Pages: 34
Accounting Fraud at WorldCom 1) What are the pressures that lead executives and managers to “cook the books?” After the rapid evolution of the telecommunication industry in the 1990s, WorldCom shifted its strategy to focus on building revenues and acquiring capacity sufficient to handle expected growth. Their biggest goal was to be the No. 1 stock on Wall Street rather than capturing the market share. As a result, their Expense-to-Revenue (E/R) Ratio was their measurement for their main objective
Words: 3407 - Pages: 14
there comes a line where you know that the entry that you are making is incorrect, and you make the entry anyways. That to me is where fraud is committed. Otherwise make your best judgement call on what would be appropriate to capitalize, or develop a new way of calculating estimates for accruals if you believe them to be wrong. 3. Why were the actions taken by WorldCom managers not detected earlier? There was no set of stated policies written in the company. The company most likely had around 30
Words: 764 - Pages: 4
WorldCom Case Study Requirements 1. The paper must be a minimum of 5 pages in length with 1.5 inch spacing. There is no required font type but it must be legible. Font size cannot be less than 10 nor exceed 14. Use full sentences and avoid using bullet points within the paper. 2. Explain and answer the following questions: a. What are the pressures/forces that lead executives and managers to “cook the books?” b. What is the boundary between earnings smoothing or earnings management
Words: 258 - Pages: 2
世通公司财务舞弊案 世界通信公司成立于1983年，在不到20年的时间内，成为美国的第二大长途电信营运商（仅次于1877年成立的美国电报电话公司（AT&T），如果不是司法部在2001年否决了世界通信与斯普瑞特（Srint）公司的合并方案，他很可能成为美国电信业的龙头老大）。世界通信的成功应归功于其创始人本纳德·埃伯斯（Bernard J. Ebbers）在收购兼并方面的禀赋以及首席财务官司考特D·苏利文（Scott D. Sullivan）。从1983年成立至2001年，世界通信共完成了65项重大收购兼并。 2002年7月21申请破产保护前，世界通信是一个业务范围覆盖65个国家，拥有85000名员工、1000多亿美元资产、350多亿美元营业收入，为2000多万个人客户和数万家公司客户提供语音话务、数据传输和因特网服务的超大型跨国公司。 首先发现世界通信财务舞弊的是内部审计部的副总经理辛西亚·库伯（Cynthia Cooper），2002年末被评为《时代》杂志一年一度的新闻人物（此外，还有安然公司的雪伦·沃特金斯（Sherron Watkins）和联邦调查局的柯琳·罗莉（Coleen
Words: 397 - Pages: 2
WorldCom history The history of WorldCom Company dates back in 1983 which started as a partnership between a former basketball coach Bernard Ebbers. This company was established at Mississippi as a coffee shop, which later developed to long distance Telephone Company. The company’s name initially was Long Distance Discount Service whose operations began on 1984. After several years in operation, the company became public in August 1989 with Bernard Ebbers as the company’s CEO (Moberg 4). Over the
Words: 2628 - Pages: 11
Final Paper: Case Study of WorldCom Financial Statement Fraud Introduction This paper will discuss the financial statement fraud committed by WorldCom by examining what led up to the fraud, who committed it and why, and the impact it caused on various stakeholders and the economy. WorldCom applied aggressive and undisclosed accounting tactics to provide financial statements that reflected a $10 billion profit for the years 2000 and 2001, rather than the actual combined loss of $73.7 billion
Words: 3888 - Pages: 16
