In Fastow’s view, these were “just commissions,” and Enron owed him for saving the day. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 American documentary film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history. hey, my name's Gabe (they/them). In 2007, the company’s name was changed and set a goal to completely repay all creditors and end all its activities (Wikipedia). When its last business was sold, it left Enron without any assets. Skilling brought with him a style of accounting called mark-to-market accounting (McLean & Elkind, 2005). Nowadays, most corporate executives are required to hold a certain multiple of their base salary in company stock. By the end, Enron owed … This was the beginning of the end however. Lou Pai, Enron's Elusive Mystery Man Lou Pai is the real mystery man in the Enron scandal. McLean and Elkind are credited as writers of the film alongside the director, Alex Gibney. Enron employee Sherron Watkins sends letter to Ken Lay warning of accounting irregularities that could pose a threat to the company. Any asset that was hedged should, for the most part, have a locked-in sales value for Enron, meaning that despite current market prices, Enron should realize the hedged price of the Raptor. Enron duly recruited him to run this business and he rapidly built up a major gas trading operation through the early nineties. those are my pronouns and that's a way I can let you know. * Enron sold CrossCountry Energy for $2.45 billion in order to address some of the credit outstanding. as a transgender non-binary person, it's a nice way to avoid having to go out of my way to correct people when I'm misgendered in conversation. Enron allowed Andrew Fastow, the Chief Financial Officer to control two SPE’s (special purpose entities) that were knowingly connected to Enron, and gave him an opportunity to abuse his power. Ken Lay makes a presentation to employees Around the same time, he also cashes in many of his Enron share options . Many of Enron’s SPE’s failed on all three criteria. The main difference is that each executive still holds most of their net worth in company stock. Enron typically used the Equity Method of accounting for SPE’s meaning they simply added Enron’s proportional share in the earnings of each SPE in a single line item on its income statement without disclosing corresponding balance sheet, cash flow and other considerations. Enron’s Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey was meant to keep Fastow in check, but he saw his job as facilitating Fastow’s transactions. The Enron Corporation was a U.S. energy, services and commodities company with headquarters in Houston, Texas. 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