The Ethics Of The Enron Scandal - 1902 Words

Ethical Scrapbook In the three excerpts that will be discussed in this report there is a theme. That theme is ethics or the lack there of. What all three of these cases have in common is that people were willing to trade in their reputations, their livelihood and in some cases their personal freedom to get what they wanted. In two of the examples, the prize they sought was money, pure and simply a case of greed. Importantly, these people already had significant wealth, and they were willing to take the chance on losing what they had already attained to get more. In the other case, the defendant’s ethics are what initiated his behavior. Enron The first story is without a doubt one of the most serious cases of its kind. The Enron†¦show more content†¦The investigation revealed a network of partnerships designed to hide Enron’s debt. Unfortunately, by November 2001 the company’s stock had gone from a high of $90. to $1. investors had lost billions of dollars (Silverstein, 2013). The company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001 and around 5,600 employees lost their jobs. The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation and by January of 2004 Fastow accepted a deal to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in exchange for his cooperation with the Justice Department (Silverstein, 2013). In February 2004, Jeffrey Skilling pled not guilty to charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and making false statements on financial reports (Silverstein, 2013). In addition, Kenneth Lay was charged with fraud and making misleading statements, he pled not guilty. The trial began in January 2006, in the end Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling were found guilty of lying to investors, employees and regulators in an effort to conceal the loses of the company (Silverstein, 2013). Eventually, Mr. Skilling was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison however, in July 2013 his sentence was reduced by ten years. Although, Mr. Lay was also found guilty, he died July 5, 2006 at his home in Aspen Co. before being sentenced. This scandal epitomized the excesses of the 1990’s and the management failures of