Talk:Enron scandal

John D Arnold

Oil trader is now one of the richest people in the USA. He started a hedge fund with 'ill gotten' money from Enron. http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110948/youngest-billionaires-in-america;_ylt=AjDHSW6ZANtGQoWnekbPcIpO7sMF;_ylu=X3oDMTFhNGY5bjNkBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNwZXJzb25hbEZpbmFuY2UEc2xrA2FtZXJpY2FzeW91bg--?mod=career-leadership

--Ericg33 (talk) 10:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Nominated at GAN

After working on the article for the last week, I have nominated the article at Good article nominations. Before the article is reviewed, try and give the article a copyedit to further improve the article. Good work to all who have contributed to the article in the past. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 20:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

I have restored previous version the lead section[6] for the following reasons:

1. The lead was very long;
2. Most of it was unsourced;
3. It contained statements that are not entirely correct.

My view is that the lead should be sourced as much as possible. In my experience, articles that are not sourced tend to be magnets for original research, which in turn tends to be subject to "goldfish editing", by which I mean lots of editors make little nibbles at the text.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

For an article of this length, guidelines recommend four paragraphs. I also tried to cover each topic as discussed in the article to provide an adequate lead. As it currently stands, it doesn't cover some of the topics in the article. Leads are not required to be sourced, although we could source the financial figures (readers can view the article and see the appropriate source(s) that cover the summary). In addition the statements that are cited in the current lead are taken verbatim from the source (one reason I reworded the lead, along with other areas in the article). I like sourcing in articles quite a bit (take a look at some of the articles I've worked on!), and the version I added can have sources added. If there are incorrect sentences, please point them out so we can correct them. I tried to ensure it was accurate, but if there were issues, that should be fixed in case anything in the article is also incorrect. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not saying the sourced version is particularly great, but I think it was a big improvement on the unsourced version that existed a few months ago[7]. The problem I would like to address are vague generalisations that cannot be proved or disproved, and replace them with more sourced information. As you will be aware from having edited the sources, there is a huge mass of information about the scandal, and making sense of it is dependent on getting the facts right and providing some form of backround or context to make these facts understandable. In my experience, relying on broad generalisation to provide information and context is a mistake, because they are magnets for original research; the opinions expressed are likely to be replaced over and over by other editors with different views from your own. The Enron Scandal is a very well sourced topic, so it should not be hard to find some good coverage for the lead, which is very important as it anchors the article to the content that follows.

I have some questions about your lead, which I have broken down by paragraph as follows:

1. Enron had a strong start after being formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay.
2. Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he instituted mark-to-market accounting and developed a staff of executives that would later bring the downfall of the company.
3. Along with Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives, the company used accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects.
4. Enron's audit committee failed to follow up on high-risk accounting issues and Anderson was pressured by the company to ignore accounting practices.
5. After Enron's stock price hit a high of $90 per share in mid-2000, it began to drop at which point Skilling resigned from the company.
6. Both internal and external analysis began to reveal the fraud that was being perpetuated by the company.
7. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began an investigation, and Dynegy offered to purchase the company at a fire sale price.
8. The deal fell through and on December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
9. In the aftermath of the scandal, many executives at Enron were indicted for a variety of charges and were later sentenced to prison.
10. Anderson was found guilty in a state court, but by the time the ruling was overturned at the U.S. Supreme Court, the company had lost the majority of its customers and had shut down.
11. Employees and shareholders received limited returns in lawsuits, despite losing billions in pensions and stock prices.

My questions are as follows:

1. In what sense did Enron "have a strong start"? My understanding is that it would have been hard not to make money in the oil and gas industry, but whether Enron was as good as or better than its peers is a matter of speculation;
2. I think we should be able to find an some sort of source for this, e.g. Forbes, and provide some context too.
3. Such a strong statement of opninion needs to be sourced: strong claims require strong sourcing;
4. Likewise this needs to be sourced
5. I am not sure at what poing the preasure for Skilling to resign would have become overwhealming. The share price is only a symptom of what was going wrong - perhaps it was the restatement of earnings that blew away his credibility? Again, we need to nail this down with at least one source;
6. I am not sure if fraud had been established prior to the company's collapse: this may have been revealed later; again we need to find some sources to substantiate this;
7. Statements about the SEC investigation and the Dynegy takeover should be easy to source;
8. Likewise with the bankrupcy;
9. Likewise with the outcome of the trials of Enron's top executives;
10. The firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstructing justice, which needs to be sourced also;
11. The claim that shareholders received limited returns, despite losing billions needs to be quantified and sourced.

As I say, the amount of detail in this article is extensive, but it would be a shame not to make sure it is all accurate and sourced. I think that if we can source as much of this as possible, it will be a big leap forward. Lets address each of these statements one by one, and see if we replace them with sourced content. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

All of these statements were developed based on the prose within the article which are already cited to one or more sources. As WP:LEAD states, "Because the lead will usually repeat information also in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material." Citations should only be used for this lead for sourcing any quotes or financial figures (such as the stock price or bankruptcy totals). I think this setup is to deter readers from only looking at the lead, they should want to read the body as well.

1. "By 1992, Enron was the largest merchant of natural gas in North America..." That seems like a positive start for the company after seven years. The company did have positive revenue/net income in the beginning years, and it was the later modification of numbers in the mid-late 1990s that led to the inflation of the company's value. In addition, it isn't comparing against competitors in this statement.

2. "However, when Skilling joined the company, he demanded that the trading business adopted mark-to-market accounting, citing..." What sort of context were you thinking of adding?

3. "Fastow, along with other executives, "...created off-balance-sheet vehicles, complex financing structures, and deals so bewildering that few people can understand them even now."", "...including capitalizing on loopholes found in the accounting industry's standards...", etc.

4. "Enron's audit committee did not have the technical knowledge to properly question the auditors on accounting questions related to the company's special purpose entities. The committee was also unable to question the management of the company due to pressures placed on the committee.", "Anderson's auditors were pressured by Enron's management to defer..."

5. I don't believe that this statement would need a citation in the lead, but looking at the statement now, it definitely could be reworded. Got any ideas?

6. The internal analysis includes the focus by Sherron Watkins, and outside reporters/analysts that began looking closer at the company's financial documents. Also, it's currently worded to say that it "began to reveal", as the full allegations of fraud weren't brought until later.

7. They're easy to source, but I don't think it's necessary when already covered in the article. If the fire sale price mentions the price, then a source could be used.

8. Already sourced in the bankruptcy section.

9. Already sourced in the Enron trials section.

10. This is covered in the trials section regarding AA.

11. If we add the specific figures then a citation should be added.

The lead definitely could be reworded, but as stated above, only a few of the statements actually need citations. Feel free to readd the prior lead and reword it as you see fit. It's good to take a look at each statement individually, and we want to ensure it is accurate. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 18:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the changes as it conflicts with some of the points raised above. We need a source for the $11 billion in losses for shareholders to mention in the article itself (before it can be mentioned in the lead). In addition, I removed "In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history, Enron undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure." This statement is taken verbatim from the source, and the use of "undoubtedly" doesn't sound neutral (although it's likely true, we still need to ensure that there is no POV). In addition it would need to be mentioned somewhere in the article before including it in the lead. Looking at the chart near the bottom of the article, the stock price was not at $.10 (until the following year). It would be confusing for readers to have conflicting numbers, so that's why I removed that. If there is a reason to readd the statements, we need to make sure they're properly sourced and are mentioned within the article. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I have added back the sourced analysis by Benston and the comments by Bratton, with a correction to the stock price ($0.10 to $1). --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the stock price as it was actually around a dollar at the end of November, not October (still can't believe some analysts kept saying "buy"). I removed the stock ticker symbol as that was a little specific for the lead, but brought it down into the article. The $11 billion statement conflicts with the mention of $74 billion (in the Aftermath section) that was lost over several years, should we include that statistic in the lead instead? I also readded some of the summary details (such as the proposed buyout by Dynergy) so that the lead better summarizes the article. The lead is also at four paragraphs per conventions at WP:LEAD. How does the lead look? I think it covers both of our revisions, and I'd prefer to discuss it here instead of undoing the lead over the same items. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no conflict between the $11 billion loss in shareholders equity reported in Enron's balance sheet (see Benston, p12) and $74 billion lost through the drop in the value of Enron shares per the Axtman. Axtman is vague about what that $74 billion loss represents, but it must be the losses incurred by investors as the share price dropped from around $90 until the company filed for bankruptcy at which point the shares became worthless. Note that the share price of a corporation will always trade at a premium or discount to the fair value of its assets, which accounts for the difference. Both statements are key to understanding why the Enron scandal is such a notable event; the economic losses were both colossal and catastrophic. If Enron's bankruptcy was the largest ever at the time ($63.4 billion), the shareholders lost $11 billion of this as a direct result (the rest of the lost was suffered by lenders and creditors). For this reason, I would be grateful if you could restore the Benston citation - it is key to this whole article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. I readded the figure to the lead as well as to the image caption of the stock price drop, so that it wasn't mentioned only in the lead. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Enron scandal/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Hi, Nehrams. I'm going to review this article for GA. I can see at first glance over sources that you've done an admirable job at finding what there was to find about this issue. Primarily, I think I'll be concentrating here on prose and comprehension, as economic writing is very often filled with jargon and I noticed some parts where inherent insider understanding is necessary to get the concepts in the article. I'll be leaving my comments here over the next day or so. --Moni3 (talk) 14:39, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Okeydoke. I apologize for not being able to get to this right away. I have found my time so interrupted that I hope you don't mind that I take this article in fits and starts, just to be able to do something. I tried to start it several times but got so sidetracked that I could not complete it in one sitting.

Lead: Repetition

The Enron scandal was a corporate scandal involving the American energy Enron Corporation based in Houston, Texas and the accounting, auditing, and consultancy firm Arthur Andersen, that was revealed in October 2001. The scandal eventually led to the bankruptcy of Enron, at that point, the largest in American history. Arthur Andersen, which at the time was one of the five largest accounting firms in the world, was dissolved.

What you're saying here is that a notable scandal was a scandal. While this is inherently true, it is not good writing. Can you work with it to variate the vocabulary to flow?

• The Enron scandal involved the American energy Enron Corporation based in Houston, Texas... (two repetitions, actually, but I can understand the double reference to Enron)
• If you want to say The Enron scandal was a something, would "an episode of corporate deviance" be accurate?
• The second sentence can use a pronoun for its beginning. In the first three lines "scandal" is used three times. I'll be honest that I'm so squeamish about making the facts inaccurate that I am not copy editing the article myself where I normally would in the sofixit mindset. Try this:

The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, involved the Houston, Texas-based energy corporation Enron, and accounting, auditing, and consultancy firm Arthur Andersen. It eventually led to the bankruptcy of Enron, which was at the time the largest (energy company? corporation?) in American history, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest accounting firms in the world.

I followed the majority of the changes you suggested, please take a look and let me know if the differences don't work well. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he instituted mark-to-market accounting and developed a staff of executives that would later bring the downfall of the company. Along with Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives, the company used accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects.

• From the get-go you're going to have to explain clearly and immediately some of these issues. I see it is done, but some other details are getting in the way.
• "Along with" is one of those things people say every day that when you read Tony1's grammar guide you realize that it really is colloquial and redundant. Try this:

Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he instituted mark-to-market accounting that used accounting bookkeeping? loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects. These practices were assisted/approved/condoned by a staff of executives that would later bring the downfall of the company, including Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow.

I've rearranged the paragraph and added/removed information. Let me know what you think. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The rise of Enron

• Explain please how the deregulation of natural gas allowed Enron to flourish. Were they able to set their prices far below smaller companies?

I've tried to clarify further by adjusting the paragraph. Pleas let me know if it still isn't clear. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Is this Ken Lay's mugshot? The caption should say so if it is.

Clarified. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• How is a 311% growth moderate? That seems extraordinary, particularly when the next to years were much lower, yet still (to me, at least) significant gains.

Reworded. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Can you give a start price, so to speak, of Enron's stock as a fledgling company?

I don't know if that's really relevant for its initial issue, especially since the stock split at least once in the late 90s. In addition, I think that readers can look to the bottom graph to see how it was near the end of the company's downfall. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Causes of downfall

• How can nontransparent financial statements reveal something? Explain nontransparent vs how these details were eventually uncovered.

I reworded the statement. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Three sentences in a row start with Enron. Watch for diversification of sentence starts.

I merged two of the sentences together and expanded on it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• It appears in this section that the mark-to-market accounting and special purposes entities are the crux of the problematic accounting. They're bulleted, but then they have subsections. What is the reason for the repetition?

I just removed the bullets, as each limitation is discussed in detail in the subsections. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• when Skilling joined the company, he demanded that the trading business adopt mark-to-market accounting, citing that it would reflect "... true economic value." what he thought was/considered to be "... true economic value"? Punctuation outside quotes.

In this case, the "true economic value" are the last few words of a quoted sentence, so does the punctuation need to be moved? If it had been in the middle of a quoted sentence (ex. "he thought true economic value was important"), then punctuation would be outside of the quotation marks. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• so there were often large discrepancies reported to investors Were the discrepancies reported, or were there discrepancies between what the company actually incurred and what was reported?

Reworded to clarify. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• income from projects could be recorded, giving the company growth does this mean inaccurately showing the company's growth?

No, it still shows growth initially, but as time goes on, without the same level of income (or more), the earnings would fall. The issue was that Enron couldn't meet the steady level of income (and definitely not more), so it had to falsify the amounts to create the illusion that it was still improving each year. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• However, in future years, the profits could not be included, Why? Because future estimated profits were absorbed by the company?

Yes, because it was already included in the first year. If it had been spread out over each year, they would have had more balanced, legitimate profits, but probably not enough to impress Wall Street. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• used for more than just circumvent accounting conventions. to circumvent or circumventing

Fixed. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Can you give examples of some of the shell companies Enron employed? Oops didn't see them below...Maybe mention the names of the companies at the end of the section to lead readers into the next, and to get rid of beginning a section with "For example".

• • Interruption. Will return later. --Moni3 (talk) 23:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Excellent review so far (I look forward to the rest of it). I appreciate you taking the time to review such a long article, and take your time for any remaining issues. Some of the above issues I definitely should have caught. It's good to have another person take a look at the article to see what does/doesn't make sense to the average reader. I'll try to get to these later today or over the next few days. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

JEDI and Chewco

• Gosh, this section just makes me feel hopelessly stupid. I've read it six times and I still don't understand it. Enron joins with CalPERS to invest in energy options, and then invests with them with something else, but CalPERS says only if Enron backs out of JEDI? I'm sorry, but I don't understand the issue with Chewco either. Just that I think it's odd that they named stuff after Star Wars. Maybe if you kind of...dumbed it down for me a bit here, it might give us both some ideas about how to present this info.

What, this is the simplest thing ever! No, I still don't get it completely either (especially if you look at the complicated consolidation rules that aren't mentioned in this article). However, I've reworded it a bit more, so let me know if it makes more sense. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Whitewing

• What was the arrangement changed from? How was it controlled before? This one is easier to get than JEDI and Chewco.

I couldn't find any additional information on this, but I tried to reword it to prevent that confusion. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

LJM and Raptor

• Can you confirm the verb tense in this sentence is accurate? Enron capitalized the Raptors, and, in a similar matter to when a company issues stock at a public offering, then booked the notes payable issued as assets on its balance sheet and increased its shareholders' equity for the same amount. It seems wrong to me and therefore confusing. I read it out loud to my partner changing the tenses of the verbs and neither of us could get it.

Try taking the "in a similar matter to when a company issues stock at a public offering" clause out and all of the verb tense agrees. However, would you prefer the sentence read as "In a matter similar to when a company issues stock at a public offering, Enron capitalized the Raptors and then booked the notes payable issued as assets on its balance sheet as it increased its shareholders' equity for the same amount."? It seems to me that the current setup flows better. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Hovering over the LJM link actually gives me a clearer idea in the first sentence what these partnerships were used for. If the first sentence in the LJM article is accurate, can you simplify working into the issues in this section?

Added the clarification to hopefully help the section make more sense. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• So Fastow goes before the board and says, hey I'm going to do what? Create some limited partnerships to buy up Enron's sinking stocks? What does the board say about this? Does anyone bat an eyelash? Isn't this evident that it's a house of cards? (It kind of reminds me of the accusation of the Church of Scientology buying Dianetics in bulk from local bookstores and selling it right back to them to be able to get on Bestseller lists.)

From the books/articles I read, it looks like he didn't mention every detail (the board probably didn't care anyway if we went into excessive detail, as long as money was being made). He definitely didn't mention the over $30 million he personally made from the entities. This is what you get when there is no accountability and people get caught up with all of the constant good news and millions in bonuses. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Where does the Raptor I-IV name come in? Were LJM 1 and LJM 2 called Raptor? Why?

They were named for the dinosaur, I have now mentioned that in the article. The Raptors were separate SPEs than the LJMs, and I clarified to hopefully avoid that confusion. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• And I'm just sitting here thinking the balls! it takes to do this! Were they just congratulating themselves?

After reading Conspiracy of Fools and The Smartest Guys in the Room, for the most part, I'd say yes, they were. The attitudes quickly changed after the company started to fall. This is one reason that I wanted to improve this article, to hopefully educate the people on the consequences that would occur from acting unethically. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Corporate governance

• On paper, Enron had a model board of directors comprised of predominantly outsiders with significant ownership stakes and a talented audit committee. What was it in reality? I'm afraid to know.

The board and committee actually was made up of these members, but the people just didn't live up to the "model" and "talented" part. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Just FYI, I'm going to read over these sections several times, so more questions and requests for clarifications may arise whenever I get over the balls! it took for this to happen.

I've had to do that many times myself. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Executive compensation

• Let me know your thoughts on this: Should any background or explanation be given to non-Americans about the understanding that CFOs and CEOs get paid the big bucks because they have to report to their investors? Actually, I am American and I don't quite get why this is (particularly when it translates into other fields such as public education).

I'm thinking that this article is already too long/focused on the topic, that it isn't really necessary to go into that detail. I've provided links to the executive titles so if readers are interested, they can learn more about what the position entails. As for me, I too will never understand it either, similar to sports players and actors. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Skilling believed that if Enron's employees were constantly cost-centered, it would hinder original thinking. And (seriously) he thinks this is bad? Don't most companies want their employees to "think outside the box"? Wasn't creating all this accounting skullduggery original thinking in the first place?

Maybe he didn't want them to question what was going on at the top, so if he allowed them to have nice cozy jobs with great expense accounts and large bonuses, there would be no reason to question where it was coming from. He already had enough people to come up with quite some amazing original ideas to hide debt and create profits. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Risk management

• The first sentence made me laugh out loud. Who's lauding them? Where is the journalistic oversight?

This was from journalists and analysts that weren't really investigating the company. They saw large increases in profit each quarter, and then said, "hey, let's put them on our covers and give them these awards". Except there was no focus on what they did to get there (you'd think competitors and other industries would be studying the company like crazy to see where everything was coming from to duplicate it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Could the board not see the future? I'm just gobsmacked that they thought this would last and they could not see the inevitable failure of these issues.

As long as nobody investigated the entities and people didn't leave the company, it probably could have went on for several more years. Maybe people thought that they would collect some nice bonsues before the hammer dropped and somebody else would deal with it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Financial audit

• Make it clear again that Arther Andersen is a firm, not a single dude who got away with this.

Yeah, and that's a shame since the actual Arthur Anderson was actually an ethical guy when he created the company. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• $27 million in consulting...what was Arther Andersen consulted for? Is that not an inherent conflict of interest, or was their consultation for something that is connected to auditing?

Before it became illegal, auditor firms would act as consultants to advise companies in a variety of financial areas. Audit fees would be a small portion of their total collected fees, so the audit was almost like an afterthought. When the auditor is only focused on the larger fees, then you lose that accountability and due diligence. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• • End second review. Will pick up in this section again. --Moni3 (talk) 00:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Picking up in Financial audit

• Explain what a write-down is.

I reworded and clarified. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• What sort of obligation does an independent auditor have when they uncover or suspect wrongdoing? Are they expected to report illegal activities?

If there is an issue that the company can resolve, then they give them adequate time to address it. If the company still does not want to fix the auditor's raised issues, then the auditor can remove itself from the audit and not sign off on the company having a clean record. Other auditors will then likely not take the company on as an audit, which makes the company a major risk for investors and a target for government investigations. If there is fraud, I believe that the auditor can report it, especially when the company makes no effort to fire the responsible employees/stop the fraudulent activity. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Audit committee

• No problems or questions this time.

Other accounting issues and stock price focus

• We tried to aggressively use the literature [GAAP] to our advantage. All the rules create all these opportunities. We got to where we did because we exploited that weakness. At what point in the investigation/scandal did the executive say this?

This was just one of the accountants working for the company, not an executive. In the quote he could either be referring to the actions he was a part of, or what Enron did in general. I don't think the book clarifies at what point this is revealed. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Enron made a habit of booking costs of cancelled projects as assets I don't understand how a project active or cancelled could be considered an asset.

If it's an active project, it is something that the company has the ability to possibly get future earnings, so it would be recorded as an asset. However, if it's cancelled, it has no chance of ever earning a profit, so it should be written off, and definitely not be labeled as an asset. These guys were looking for anything that could be used to improve the balance sheet in any way they could. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Timeline of downfall

• "... not want anyone to know what's on those books. We don't want to tell anyone where we're making money." Who's Fastow saying this to?

Clarified. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Second half of the second paragraph about the asshole jokes needs to be cited.

Added sources. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• The cite in the New York Times blockquote from 8/22/01 should appear at the end of the blockquote, but within it...if that's clear.

I've always added it to the introductory statement, is there some guideline that goes against this? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• What is the cause of Skilling's turnaround from the apparent arrogance of calling Grubman an asshole to somehow developing a conscience or concern about the company?

Probably from the backlash, and to put himself in a better light when the investigations started. From what I can tell, he did care about the company, he just was stressed from the position, and didn't obviously make the best of choices or surround himself with the greatest people. He was really obsessed with the stock price and wanted to make sure that everything and anything could be done to keep it up. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Investors' confidence declines

• "not least" is confusing

Reworded. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Lay accepted that Enron's business was very complex, but asserted that analysts would "never get all the information they want" to satisfy their curiosity. Who is Lay saying this to? A private board meeting? Investigators from the SEC?

The article says an interview, not sure if it's with NYT staff or with an investigator. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Restructuring losses and SEC investigation

• No problems or questions this time.

Liquidity concerns

• No problems or questions this time.

Credit rating downgrade

• No problems or questions this time.

• • Interrupted. Will pick up soon. --Moni3 (talk) 17:22, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed buyout by Dynegy

• Both companies were said to be anxious to receive an official assessment of the proposed sale from Moody's and S&P (considered by some a "do or die"[90] deal for Enron) "By some" is weaselish. Pin it down: considered by so and so in The New York Times...

I looked and this wasn't in the source, so I removed it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Bankruptcy

• No problems or questions this time.

Trials

• before the scandal became public, he was always under the radar. This is somewhat informal an not encyclopedic.

Reworded. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath

• Perhaps a disturbing element about this is that there is no section on how this changed economic reporting in US journalism. Is it possible to create one? I get the impression that this has not really improved, particularly in light of the more recent global financial problems and how they rather crept up on investors (per this article as an example).

I didn't see any reliable articles after an initial search. If this article does go to FAC at some point, I'll look further into adding it. And yes, the field had some improvement, but it looks like it gradually decreased over the years. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've read through some of your changes and comments. I'm going to read through the article again, directing specific attention on the issues I highlighted above.

Other thoughts: Should you contemplate taking this to FAC, I suggest going through it or asking Tony1 to do the same, to look for language that is too burdensome or that could be simplified. I commend you for taking on this article. I do not recall ever giving such a detailed review for GA, but there is a lot of technical information that should be easily accessible. It's quite impressive that you have been able to construct it as well as you have. I'll be in contact again soon. --Moni3 (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I've not been the only one who has worked on the article, Gavin.collins did a great job expanding the article. I only started at this point. This review has been very helpful, and I don't mind addressing each issue if the article continues to improve because of it. In addition, this will help whenever the article goes to FAC at some point. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Nehrams, I'm reading through the article again and have some suggestions that are easier for me to rearrange in a sandbox than explain in a GA review. They are primarily concerned with the logical flow of the presentation of facts, how one section joins to another, and basically the facilitation of information. I'd like to see the JEDI and Chewco section rewritten, as I know you worked on it but I just do not understand what it is trying to say. Let me know your thoughts. --Moni3 (talk) 17:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I changed the article per your suggestions (I didn't see the green prose, so maybe bold font can be used for any future suggestions). Let me know what further ideas you have for the JEDI/Chewco section. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Eehhhhh I forgot I removed the green. Urgh. Ok. I read over the article again. I think it qualifies as GA and I commend you and the other editors again on constructing this. It's quite well written. If you are planning to take it to FAC, ask for a peer review. Get as many folks to read it as possible. I'm glad I took this article on, thought it was a bit of a slog in prose and in review to get through. --Moni3 (talk) 13:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, that is a great result. Congratulations to Nehrams. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to complete such an in-depth review, I figured this would sit at GAN for months. This article does have the potential to go to FAC, but it's going to have to be at least a few months before I start anything. Good job Gavin in bringing the article up to what it was, you found a lot of sources I most likely would have missed. If you're interested in going to FAC at some point let me know, and we can start the PR. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Nehram I'd like to suggest a modification to the trials subsection for Arthur Andersen. The last line mentions how the name is too damaged to continue as a business. However, Andersen Tax has recently re-emerged as a rising force in the accounting field. Much of the tax practice at AA initially joined Accenture. However, Andersen Tax's parent company originally purchased a portion of AA's tax practice and is named after Andersen, so Andersen certainly has Arthur Andersen roots. I knew this information from my own experience as an accountant student and professional, as well as viewing the Andersen Tax wiki page. Hope this information helps with future edits! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsavary1 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes

I have reverted the recent changes for several reasons. The addition of the revenue recognition section, although beneficial to the article, cannot remain in its current state. The majority of the content is nearly verbatim from the source, and although the source is attributed, editors are required to either expand/further develop the text or put it in quotation marks indicating it is being quoted from a source. Since it doesn't appear feasible to add quotation marks around the entire section, it needs to be re-written. I've removed it from the article for now, but if it is re-written it would make a great addition to the article. The lead was also reverted as it can only remain at four paragraphs per WP:LEAD and since there was some duplication. Please see the above discussion for further explanation. Hopefully we can fix the section and readd it to the article, but at its current state, I have removed it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I am so disappointed and I would have that that you of all editors would understand the significance of these sources. To be frank, I not sure why you believe removing sourced content is constructive. I can understand that removing unsourced content, or summarising verbose sections is beneficial, but removing sourced content seems to me to run contrary to the whole mission of Wikipedia, and removing high quality coverage makes no sense at all. I am not sure why valuable coverage is being singled out for such negative treatment. In the first instance the deleted text should be restored, and an appology rendered.
In fairness, its not down to me to "fix" this article the way you want it to be. I will never know what goes on in your mind, or which parts of the text are argreeable or disagreeable to you. Revenue recognition is central to understanding how Enron scandal occured, and I have got a reliable secondary source to prove it. If you wish to ammend the sources to extract more meaning or context from them, that would be an improvement. But removing sourced coverage, particularly top quality coverage (the likes of which I have not seen in any other article about a company), is not acceptable. Please restore all my edits and lets see what proposals you have, rather than just deleting solid gold coverage. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is not about how I want it to read, but for the readers who refer to it and our core policies that specifically dictate how articles should be written. I did not say anything about not using the sources, I said that we cannot just copy what they had written and pass it off as our own. It doesn't matter if any content is sourced/unsourced, if it is copied verbatim, then that's plagiarism. We are fortunate to have so many great academic sources on this article, and I would like to see these sources used as it does help better explain the article's content. If you had added the content but had put it in your own words while still citing the source, I wouldn't have removed it. I'd invite you to take a stab at it first, and I'll help to copyedit/expand it at that point. If you need further clarification on this, please let me know. Good job finding these new sources. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you may be mistaken about the accusation of plagiarism because I am making no representation of them as my own work, and I have modified the original accademic papers, which in turn cite other accademic papers. Since the sources of coverage are attributed by citation, and only selective sentences have been extracted from them, this is far removed from wholesale copying of entire texts without attribution. However, perhaps this is where we need to get a third opinion. The text disputed text is as follows:

1. One consequence of these events was the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, as a result of the first admissions of fraudulent behavior made by Enron. The act significantly raises criminal penalties for securities fraud, for destroying, altering or fabricating records in federal investigations or any scheme or attempt to defraud shareholders.

2. Energy merchants are firms that engage in wholesale trading and risk management and development of electric power plants but also natural gas pipelines, storage, and processing facilities.

3.If a merchant takes the risks of buying and selling goods, it is allowed to report the entire selling price of the products as revenues and the cost of purchases as cost of goods sold. By contrast, an "agent" is someone who provides a service to the customer, but does not really take up the risks of buying and selling. Under the agent model, the service provider is allowed to report the trading fee, brokerage fee, etc. as revenue, but not the entire value of the transaction.

4. Enron adopted an aggressive accounting interpretation of what constitutes revenues by adopting a so-called "merchant model" of revenues, whereby Enron reported the entire value of each trade on which it was a counterparty as its revenue, rather than reporting as revenues only its trading or brokerage fees. Traditional trading firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch use a more conservative "agent model" of revenue reporting, in which only the trading or brokerage fee would be reported as revenue.

5. Enron’s use of distorted, hyper-inflated revenues was more important to it in creating the impression of innovation, high growth, and spectacular business performance than the masking of debt. In four short years from 1996 to 2000, its revenues had increased by more than 750 percent, rising from $13.3 billion in 1996 to $100.8 billion in 2000. From 1999 to 2000, Enron’s revenues increased 151% from $40.1 billion to $100.8 billion. This growth of over 65% per year is unprecedented in any industry let alone the staid energy industry that normally views even a two or three percent a year growth as a decent achievement. Enron reported pre-bankruptcy revenues of $138.7 billion for the first nine months of 2001, pushing it up to Number 6 on the Fortune Global 500, passing DaimlerChrysler, Royal Dutch/Shell, General Electric and Toyota and ChevronTexaco. As can be seen by the use of revenues as the basis for Fortune’s annual ranking of companies, annual revenues can he an important psychological measure that carries a lot of weight among investors and the public as an indicator of success and economic size.

6. This practice of reporting inflated trading revenue was not limited to just Enron in the energy industry. Many other companies in the energy trading industry felt the need to meet the competitive pressure from Enron’s rapid ascendancy; and most of the main competitors of Enron adopted financial reporting methods that were identical to Enron’s. Soon, several energy companies with substantive trading operations moved into the elite top 50 of the Fortune 500 category induding Duke Energy; El Paso Corporation, Reliant Energy, and Dynegy Inc.

I think you will find I have modified the text in most instances. However, where a sentence is short, or contains useful facts or significant coverage, I have left the original text for full effect. Whether this is plagarism or not, i am not qualified to venture an opinion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 00:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

For example, bullet point five's paragraph was nearly word-for-word. It would be beneficial to cut that down and/or reword it. We don't need to include all of the information, but perhaps focus on the most important figures. Readers can always go to the source for additional information. For the individual statements, if we don't re-phrase it ourselves, then we can say something like "In her paper Enron and the Energy Market Revolution, Michelle Foss defined energy merchants as "firms that engage in wholesale trading and risk management and development of electric power plants but also natural gas pipelines, storage, and processing facilities." This would allow us to include the information in the article while adding new citations. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't win for the loosing. If item 5 is word for word, it is because the commentary, criticism and analysis it provides is worth including in this article. This is solid gold coverage, for it increases our understanding the whole scandal: the immense scale of earnings manipulation is key to explaining why Enron' management was so successful at projecting an image as one of the world's top companies. It also provides context in terms of comparison with other companies, as well as showing how Enron attracted the publicity it needed to attract investors.
As regards item 2, you will see I have already rephrased it if you compare it with the orginal source. It is very useful definition, because it lays the groundwork for the paragraph that follows (item 3) in the way that it refers to "merchants". There are so many different terms used in the business world to define the same thing, so we may as well use the terms and definitions direct from the source, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request (Is the recent text added amount to plagarism?):

I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on Enron scandal and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

The relevant guidance is WP:PLAG and possibly WP:COPYVIO. Dealing with COPYVIO first, there is no apparent copyright violation as there is no evidence that any significant amount of text has been copied directly from the sources. With regard to potential plagiarism, the text in question is sourced and attributed. Taking point 5 as an example source, I can see that more than a little phrasing has been borrowed (such as "hyper-inflated", more often used as a medical term but used in this financial context by the source) and some sentences taken unedited from the source. It should be noted that the statistics used would not be considered plagiarism and these form a significant amount of the text for this point. In conclusion I can see no evidence of systematic plagiarism however some sentences have been taken directly from the source and should be re-written or made into quotations to make the attribution obvious. Where terminology and phrasing has been borrowed from the sources care should be taken to comply with the guidance of WP:PLAG, however I would recommend this is achieved by consensus improvement and re-phrasing of the text rather than immediate removal or reversion of edits. It should be noted that I have not considered questions of layout, readability or duplication.—Ash (talk) 11:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

---

Many thanks to Ash for taking time out to respond. In response to the concerns raised by Nehrams2020, I feel that the addition of this content is supported by Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria states that "Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline, use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author". As a gesture of goodwill, I would be grateful if he could restore my edits in full, or at least agree to do so. Perhaps then we can go on to discuss his specific proposals to amend the text. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no problems with re-adding the content to the article. I'll make an attempt at cleaning up the prose later tonight before adding it since some of the examples listed above don't appear to comply with the "brief" component of the guideline. Although the content may be well-written in its original format, we should be able to put it in our own words and still illustrate the material, especially if we can include additional sources that cover the same material. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Something came up tonight, will tackle it tomorrow. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I have re-added the the sourced content, so that we can both track the changes. I personally take the view all of the above citations are brief, in the sense that they comprise of no more than a few sentence each. If you can find addtional sources as, that would be useful. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I have reworded the added information and also moved some of it around to improve the flow of the article. It would be good to find additional sources for the newly added section (along with others) that only have one or two primary source. I'll see if I can find some more later this week. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:43, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the sentence "Enron’s use of distorted, "hyper-inflated" revenues was more important to it in creating the impression of innovation, high growth, and spectacular business performance than the masking of debt", as I think this is a highly significant statement. Other sources support this as well: I came across this article, which might help you with your research. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyvio alert

User:Gavin.collins has confirmed that due to a misunderstanding, much of the sourced text that he has added in to this article is a copyvio of the source he got it from. I don't have access to most of these sources - they are not online. Is there a possibility of anyone here rewriting Gavin's contributions to avoid copyvio. Otherwise I am going to have to delete all of his contributions, which would kind of wreck the article. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll be able to re-write the portions of the article, but it will not be in the next day or so as requested on his talk page as it will take some time to look at each source. It's sat here this long already, so another few days are not going to hurt. I'll probably be able to do it within the week and would welcome Gavin.collins' assistance. He did a great job finding the quality sources for improving this article, we just need to tinker with the wording a bit. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather it was fixed than deleted. I'll leave you to talk to Gavin about it - I don't think he's unwilling to fix it, but I don't know how he's placed for time. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to be busy for the rest of the week, but I'll be able to fix the article at the beginning of next week. Anything Gavin/others wants to do between that time would be great. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've rewrote, reworded, removed, and shuffled sentences based on the sources cited. I had previously done this when I first started working on the article, but I believe I have now fixed all other occurrences. In addition, I also added WebCite links for all of the sources where possible to prevent link rot. This article has the potential to be an FA candidate down the line but is going to need further copyediting for clarity and additional book sources (along with a few images). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong numbers in 1 Rise of Enron

I think the figure quoted in the 4th paragraph of 1 The Rise of Enron are incorrect. It states that the Enron stock rose by 311%! - but the next sentence seems to give a contrary effect. I wonder if a decimal point has got missed out somewhere. I have placed a citation needed note on this.

If you have better information, please correct this.

The complete sentence reads: Enron's stock increased from the start of the 1990s until year-end 1998 by 311%[citation needed], only modestly higher than the average rate of growth in the Standard & Poor 500 index.

Notthebestusername (talk) 05:38, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

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To whomever reverted my edit

I would have contacted you on your talk page but could not figure out who you are. I clicked on 2604:3d08:5681:2c00:d64:a5f:5674:abe9 but it did not go to a talk page. I'm trying to understand why your opinion is superior to mine. My comment to the first reversion was sincere. Your reply seemed to be intentionally provocative. I'm not a vandal and do not respond well to being called one. Wiki name (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

While I think the additon of Enron's manual of ethics can be supportive to the main article, I don't think the caption is; sure if some publication or person wrote or said that Enron having a manual of ethics is ironic it can be added like so in the picture caption, but just having the word "irony" on this picture with no context it makes it look more of a humoristic nature rather to inform the reader that, even though Enron is the subject of this accounting scandal, they had a manual of ethics. -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 17:10, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

You did not explain why your opinion is superior to mine. Though a definition of irony is "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result" I'm happy to change the caption to "The subjects of this accounting scandal published this manual of ethics" if you prefer it. Wiki name (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Never implied my opinion was superior to yours. Just stated why this caption didn't fit with the overall encyclopedic tone of this article; one of the main rules of Wikipedia is to infrom in a neutral POV, which is not restricted to negative or positive bias, but also tone of writing. I agree with your new suggested caption for the picture. -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 18:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

"EnWrong" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect EnWrong. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 27#EnWrong until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

As failed the company, so the article?

While I would never suggest that ownership is a good thing, I've noticed yet another instance where an article so large is fragmented with parts having no (remaining) connection to the other text, or history, or relevance.

Out of the blue there's a paragraph beginning:

Although Michael Kopper worked for Enron for over seven years before the scandal became public, ...

And no identification of who or what is being talked about.

In a version of the article over 10 years ago, the text breathlessly included:

Nonetheless, Kopper would be one of the main ingredients in Enrons recipe for disaster when he, along with Glisan, would help Fastow create the off-balance sheets for the corporation.

Looking around one can find mentions in other articles to Chewco and JEDI and such. So the person is real. And apparently contributed a lot to the debacle. But here, no explanation or, that is, no remaining explanation. Shenme (talk) 03:27, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

John Ray / Enron Creditors Recovery Corp.

After FTX collapse, Sam Bankman-Fried exit, new CEO bankruptcy expert lawyer John Ray is in the news. "John Ray III, was chairman and president of Enron Creditors Recovery Corp." Seems important. Perhaps someone with an interest, understanding of the Enron debacle can weave Ray into the article.

Doug Grinbergs (talk) 21:41, 12 November 2022 (UTC)