The Enron Scandal One of the most popular corporate bankruptcies and collapses known to date is that of the Enron Corporation. Enron, once known as "America's Most Innovative Company" by Fortune magazine for six consecutive years from 1996 to 2001. Enron seemed to be doing very well until the summer of 2001 generating a lot of money and new business, but in In October 2001 Enron was forced to reveal that their accounting practices had been highly creative and did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles. Profits that had skyrocketed were wiped out and replaced with huge losses and charges that were never properly recorded. Unfortunately, Enron executives, responsible for the shady accounting practices, managed to escape this debt by selling off most or all of their shares in the company (valued at over $10 million) before the stock price dropped significantly. They also froze employee pension plans and many people lost their jobs following the crash and found their pensions were history (Anonymous, 2002). For five consecutive years Enron made investors and shareholders believe that all was well with the company with their creative accounting. Internal and external agencies that should have identified problems in accounting practices failed to do so until it was painfully obvious to all of America. Now, as America finds itself in the wake of the Enron scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission has tightened its control over the accounting practices of all companies and with the Public Company Accounting Reform and the Investor Protection Act of 2002 they can keep keep an eye on all the financial data. report. It's not entirely Enron's fault; through millions of dollars of work... middle of paper... on Scandal is a scandal that should never have happened. Political administrations and for-profit corporations cannot be as closely linked as they are now, people should run the country, not corporations. Furthermore, thanks to the new legislation, auditors of accounting firms will no longer have casual relationships with the audited company and therefore "creative accounting" can no longer take place. Hopefully, this is the last scandal where some greedy business executives plan to steal money from those who run their business (Lindstrom, 2004). Works Cited Lindstrom, Diane. "Enron scandal." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2004): 29 par. December 9, 2004. Anonymous. "BBC News | In Depth | Enron." BBC News (February 2002): December 9, 2004. Gutman, Huck. “Enron Scandal: The Long and Winding Path.” Common Dreams News Center (February 2002): 24 par. December 9th 2004