Enron

Enron Corporation has been characterized as a prototypical instance of pervasive organizational corruption and executive misconduct driven by greed. Enron was the earliest corporate scandal of a series of such scandals, including WorldCom, Tyco, Royal Ahold, and Parmalat. The December 2, 2001, Enron bankruptcy (filed in the Southern District of New York) was financially the largest on record (exceeded in 2002 by the WorldCom bankruptcy).

In significant ways, Enron under its chairman Kenneth L. Lay, chief executive officer (CEO) Jeffrey K. Skilling, and chief financial officer Andrew S. Fastow—allegedly aided by other executives—constituted the most sophisticated accounting and financial manipulation and thus the most complicated to disentangle. In addition to Lay, Skilling, and Fastow, other convictions (not taking into account the outcome of appeals) arising from ...