The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 45 (2005) 48–64 Contagion effects of the world’s largest bankruptcy: the case of WorldCom Aigbe Akhigbea,∗ , Anna D. Martinb , Ann Marie Whytec a Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA b Department of Finance, Charles F. Dolan School of Business, Fairfield University, USA c Department of Finance, School of Business, University of Central Florida, USA Received 16 June 2003; received in
Words: 8815 - Pages: 36
status of any entity is unethical and disgraceful. Bernie Ebbers, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WorldCom, did what the average business person would not do, commit fraud. WorldCom was one of the leading giants in the telecommunication arena acquiring MCI Communications en-route to global success, but failing at the proposed merger of Sprint. What lead to the lies and deception of WorldCom downfall? This paper will briefly discuss some of the possibilities and the outcome of WorldCom’s fall
Words: 568 - Pages: 3
Ethics in Finance To help demonstrate why ethics in finance is need the falling of WorldCom is used. In the matter of three years WorldCom went from one of the most successful and promising companies to a bankrupted and absorbed company because of upper management lacking ethics. In early 2001 WorldCom expected and thus projected the use of internet to increase and so they made a significant amount of leases to internet and telecom service providers. However, the internet usage did not increase
Words: 481 - Pages: 2
Between 1999 to 2002, WorldCom overstated its pretax income by at least $7 billion. The largest deliberate miscalculation in the history. Write down 82 billion of its reports assets. Stock value from $180 to nearly worthless Employees lost job, and worthless retirement account The bankruptcy influence 20 million retail customer. On government contracts, affect 80 million social security beneficiaries. Background Line-cost expenses are a significant cost for all long-distance
Words: 379 - Pages: 2
Case #1 Accounting Fraud at WorldCom 1. The objective of financial reporting is to provide useful information to capital providers, which are also known as the shareholders and investors. At WorldCom, the managers not only failed to provide useful information to the investors, but the fraud they created in their financial statements lead to misjudgment for a lot of the capital providers. The actions of accrual releases that the managers performed completely ignored the objective of financial reporting
Words: 1073 - Pages: 5
Running head: WORLDCOM FAILURE RESHAPING BUSINESS WorldCom’s Chief Executive Officer’s Failure of Responsibilities Reshaping the Business Environment WorldCom’s Chief Executive Officer’s Failure of Responsibilities Reshaping Business Environment Bernie Ebbers’ leadership as Chief Executive Officer for WorldCom created the largest telecommunication bankruptcies and the largest bankruptcy in the corporate world. His unethical decisions to allow false financial reports to continue
Words: 1456 - Pages: 6
Banks defend e-mail about Enron By Edward Iwata WorldCom finds accounting fraud By Andrew Backover, Thor Vladmanis, Matt Kranz and Michelle Kessler Former controller comes up more often By Andrew Backover and Chris Woodyard Cover story WorldCom’s bad math may date back to 1999 By Jayne O’Donnell and Andrew Backover CFOs join their bosses on the hot seat By Jim Hopkins Capitalizing on oldest trick in book How WorldCom, and others, fudged results By Matt Krantz USA TODAY
Words: 7153 - Pages: 29
bankruptcy in business history. In the case of both Enron and WorldCom, the causes of fraud surrounded the manipulation and misleading financial reports created by accountants. Enron was accused of lying about its profits and committing a range of inappropriate deals, including hiding the company’s debt so it would not show in the financial statements to the public. Enron was not the only company that made history for fraudulent events. WorldCom, the largest handler of long distance internet data filed
Words: 1474 - Pages: 6
organizations can now learn from the mistakes of others. This paper will discuss the mistakes that lead WorldCom, a telecom company that was once the fourth-ranked in Fortune 500, to bankruptcy in 2002, in an effort to demonstrate the importance of successful risk assessment and alignment implementation. Keywords: corporate failure, risk analysis, risk assessment, risk management, WorldCom Over the past years, and as a result of high profile firm failures, the economic crisis, and increased
Words: 4331 - Pages: 18
Abstract Ebbers began his business career running a chain of motels in Mississippi then transformed a small discount phone business he started into the telecommunications giant WorldCom. After he resigned he was convicted of one of the largest accounting scandals in the United States that had happened while he was the CEO. As a defense Ebbers tried to say that he was unknowing and don't know about technology or finance and accounting. The jury did not buy into his theory and convicted him.
Words: 1406 - Pages: 6
