A corporate collapse typically involves the

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet i ...

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

of a major business enterprise. A corporate scandal involves alleged or actual unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. Many recent corporate collapses and scandals have involved some type of false or inappropriate

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

(see list at

accounting scandals Accounting scandals are business scandals that arise from intentional manipulation of financial statements with the disclosure of financial misdeeds by trusted executives of corporations or governments. Such misdeeds typically involve complex ...

List of major corporate collapses

The following list of corporations involved major collapses, through the risk of job losses or size of the business, and meant entering into

, or being

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with ...

or requiring a non-market loan by a government.

List of scandals without insolvency

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, commonly known as ANZ Bank, is a multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is Australia's second-largest bank by assets and fo ...

scandal involving misleading file notes in the

Financial Ombudsman Service (Australia) The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) was a member-funded Australian ombudsman service that provided external dispute resolution for consumers who were unable to resolve complaints with member financial services organisations. The Financial Ombud ...

presented to the

Supreme Court of Victoria The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court compri ...

. *

allegations of racial bigotry toward billionaire businessman

Pankaj Oswal Pankaj Oswal is an Australian Swiss businessman. He was the chairman and sole founder of Burrup Holdings Limited, a Perth based company and one of the world's largest liquid ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and h ...

and his wife. Court was presented with emails where an ANZ staff member comments to ANZ CEO Mike Smith: "We are dealing with Indians with no moral compass and an Indian woman as every bit as devious as PO (Mr Oswal)." *

toxic culture. Court case where allegations were made by ex-employees that the bank's senior management tolerated drugs and strip clubs. *

alleged manipulation of the Australian benchmark interest rates. ANZ is currently being pursued by the

Australian Securities & Investments Commission The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent commission of the Australian Government tasked as the national corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to regulate company and financial services and enforce laws to pro ...

, which filed an originating process in the Federal Court of Australia against ANZ in March 2016. *

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Aerospace industry, aerospace, military technology, military and information security company, based in London. It is the largest manufacturer in Britain as of 2017. It is ...

bribery scandal related to the

Al-Yamamah arms deal Al Yamamah () is the name of a series of record arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, paid for by the delivery of up to of crude oil per day to the UK government, British government. The prime contractor has been BAE Systems and i ...

with Saudi Arabia *

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, doing business as Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consist ...

accounting scandal *

British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...

, for the " Dirty Tricks" scandal against

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, West Sussex, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic A ...

Brown & Williamson Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation was a U.S. tobacco company and a subsidiary of multinational British American Tobacco that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancin ...

, for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes, becoming the leading edge of the tobacco industry scandals of the 1990s, eventually resulting in the

Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) was entered on November 23, 1998, originally between the four largest United States Tobacco industry, tobacco companies (Altria, Philip Morris Inc., R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, R. J. Reynolds, Brow ...

* Chevron-

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Independ ...

Lago Agrio oil field pollution scandal *

Commonwealth Bank The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), also known as Commonwealth Bank or simply CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of fi ...

facts uncovered that showed the insurance arm of the bank denied life insurance policyholders despite having legitimate claims, resulting in calls for a Royal Commission into the Australian insurance industry. *

provision of unsuitable financial advice to a large number of customers between 2003 and 2012 and continuous delay in providing compensation to victims. *

Compass Group Compass Group plc is a British multinational contract foodservice company headquartered in Chertsey, England. It is the largest contract foodservice company in Europe, ahead of Sodexo, employing over 500,000 people. It serves meals in location ...

, bribed the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

in order to win business * Corrib gas controversy Kilcommon, Erris, Co. Mayo, Ireland *

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. ...

, spying scandal *

Libor scandal The Libor scandal was a series of fraudulent actions connected to the Libor (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) and also the resulting investigation and reaction. Libor is an average interest rate calculated through submissions of interest rates ...

, agreed to a combined US$2.5 billion in fines *

Duke Energy Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company ranked as the 141st largest company in the United States in 2024 – its highest-ever placement on the ...

El Paso Corp. El Paso Corporation was a provider of natural gas and related energy products and was one of North America's largest natural gas producers until its acquisition by Kinder Morgan in 2012. It was headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States. Prio ...

Fannie Mae The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and, since 1968, a publicly traded company. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New ...

, underreporting of

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...

* Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, part of the

General Motors streetcar conspiracy The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to ...

, labor controversies, Firestone and Ford tire controversy *

Forced labour under German rule during World War II The use of Slavery, slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany () and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the Economics of fascism#Political economy of Nazi Germany, ...

, financial enrichment by several major companies *

Ford Pinto The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from 1970 until 1980. The Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America. The Pinto was marketed in three bo ...

, fuel tank scandal *

scandal involving misleading file notes in the

presented to the Victorian Supreme Court. *

Global Crossing Global Crossing Limited was a telecommunications company that provided computer networking services and operated a tier 1 carrier. It maintained a large backbone network and offered peering, virtual private networks, leased lines, audio and vid ...

Guinness share-trading fraud The Guinness share-trading fraud was a major business scandal of the 1980s. It involved the manipulation of the London stock market to inflate the price of Guinness shares to thereby assist Guinness's £4 billion takeover bid for the Scotland, Sco ...

* Hafskip's collapse *

Halliburton Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...

overcharging government contracts * Harken Energy Scandal *

HealthSouth Encompass Health Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama, is the nation's largest provider of inpatient rehabilitative services, offering facility-based care through its network of 166 Rehabilitation hospital, inpatient rehabilitation hospital ...

reporting exaggerated earnings *

Hewlett-Packard spying scandal On September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that the general counsel of Hewlett-Packard, at the behest of HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, had contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists in ord ...

Hospital Corporation of America HCA Healthcare, Inc. (historically known as Hospital Corporation of America) is an American for-profit operator of health care facilities that was founded in 1968. It is based in Nashville, Tennessee, and, as of May 2020, owned and operated 186 ...

* Homestore.com * KBC Bank human rights scandal *

Kerr-McGee The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an American energy company involved in oil exploration, production of crude oil, natural gas, perchlorate and uranium mining and milling in various countries. On June 23, 2006, Anadarko Petroleu ...

, the Karen Silkwood case *

Kinney National Company Kinney Services Inc. was an American conglomerate company that existed from 1961 to 1972. Kinney Services was established as a holding company and originated from a joint venture between a funeral business and parking company. After Mergers and ...

financial scandal *

Lernout & Hauspie Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (L&H) was a Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001 because of a fraud engineered by the management. The company was based in Ypres, ...

accounting fraud * Lockheed bribery scandal in Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands *

Livedoor was a Japanese company that functioned as an Internet service provider and operator of a web portal and blog platform before being brought down by a scandal in 2006. The company was founded and led in its first 10 years by Takafumi Horie, known ...

scandal *

Luxembourg Leaks Luxembourg Leaks (sometimes shortened to Lux Leaks or LuxLeaks) is the name of a financial scandal revealed in November 2014 by a journalistic investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It is based on ...

. Luxembourg under

Jean-Claude Juncker Jean-Claude Juncker (; born 9 December 1954) is a Luxembourgish politician who was List of prime ministers of Luxembourg, prime minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013 and president of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. He also was List ...

's premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate

tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdictions that facilitate reduced taxe ...

. * Marsh McLennan * Merck

Medicaid fraud Medicaid is a government program in the United States that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources. The program is partially funded and primarily managed by state governments, which also have wide lat ...

investigation * Mirant * Morrison-Knudsen scandal. Led to William Agee's ouster * Mutual-fund scandal (2003) *

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

* Nugan Hand Bank *

Olympus Scandal The Olympus scandal was a case of accounting fraud exposed in Japan in 2011 at optical equipment manufacturer Olympus Corporation, Olympus. On 14 October, British-born Michael Christopher Woodford was suddenly ousted as chief executive. He ha ...

Options backdating In finance, options backdating is the practice of altering the date a stock option was granted, to a usually earlier (but sometimes later) date at which the underlying stock price was lower. This is a way of repricing options to make them more v ...

involving over 100 companies * Pacific Gas & Electric Company, 2017 California wildfires,

2018 California wildfires The 2018 wildfire season was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in List of California wildfires, California history. It was also the largest on record at the time, now third after the 2020 California wildfires, 2020 and 2021 Ca ...

Panama Papers The Panama Papers () are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published beginning April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These document ...

International. Leak of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents pertaining to the bank accounts and companies held by politicians,

High-net-worth individual In the financial services industry, a high-net-worth individual (HNWI) is a person who maintains liquid assets at or above a certain threshold. Typically the criterion is that the person's financial assets (excluding their primary residence) are ...

s and other people, some in off-shore tax havens. The focus was

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

law firm Mossack Fonseca. *

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsche Z ...

leak * Peregrine Systems corporate executives convicted of accounting fraud *

Phar-Mor Phar-Mor (stylized as ) was a United States chain of discount drug stores, based in Youngstown, Ohio, and founded by Michael I. Monus, Michael "Mickey" Monus and David Shapira in 1982. Some of its stores used the names Pharmhouse and Rx Place ( ...

company lied to shareholders. CEO was eventually sentenced to prison for fraud and the company eventually became bankrupt * Qwest Communications *

RadioShack RadioShack (formerly written as Radio Shack) is an American electronics retailer that was established in 1921 as an amateur radio mail-order business. Its parent company was purchased by Tandy Corporation in 1962, which shifted its focus from ma ...

CEO David Edmondson lied about attaining a B.A. degree from Pacific Coast Baptist College in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Reliant Energy Reliant Energy Retail Holding, LLC is an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. It serves the state of Texas. History Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Reliant Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, is one of the largest Texas electricity ...

Rite Aid Rite Aid Corporation is an American drugstore chain based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by Alex Grass under the name Thrift D Discount Center. Prior to its first bankruptcy in 2023, it was the th ...

accounting fraud *

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

overstated its

oil reserves An oil is any chemical polarity, nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobe, hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilicity, lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable ...

twice, it downgraded , or about 20 percent of its total holdings. *

S-Chips Scandals S chips () are Chinese companies listed on the Singapore Exchange. Their shares are known as S shares. S chips are incorporated in Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda and have their business operations in mainland ...

, Singapore * Satyam Computers, India *

7-Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc. is an American convenience store chain, headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Seven-Eleven Japan, which in turn is owned by the retail holdings company Seven & I Holdings. The chain was founde ...

Australia. Allegations of bullying tactics, underpayment of wages and entitlements. * Siemens Greek bribery scandal, involving cases of bribery on behalf of

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

towards the

Greek Government The Government of Greece (Greek language, Greek: Κυβέρνηση της Ελλάδας), officially the Government of the Hellenic Republic (Κυβέρνηση της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας) is the collective body of the Gre ...

Société Générale Société Générale S.A. (), colloquially known in English-speaking countries as SocGen (), is a French multinational universal bank and financial services company founded in 1864. It is registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby i ...

, derivatives trading scandal causing multibillion-euro losses *

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., or simply Southwest, is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States that formerly operated on a low-cost carrier model. It is headquartered in the Love Field, Dallas, Love Field neighborhood ...

, violations of safety regulations *

SunTrust Banks SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was h ...

, "claims of shoddy mortgage lending, servicing and foreclosure practices." * Tesla, involving "420 funding secured" private buyout scheme resulting in fraud charges against CEO

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

Tyco International Tyco International was a security systems company incorporated in the Republic of Ireland, with operational headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, United States (Tyco International (US) Inc.). Tyco International was composed of two major busin ...

, executive theft and prison sentence *

Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American chemical company headquartered in Seadrift, Texas. It has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company since 2001. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more f ...

, the

Bhopal disaster On 3 December 1984, over 500,000 people in the vicinity of the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate, in what is considered the world's worst ind ...

* ValuJet, loading live oxygen generators into cargo hold of apassenger jet causing a fatal crash * Volkswagen emissions violations, fraud in diesel motors pollution measurements * David Wittig "looting" scandals *

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

alleged accounting irregularities involving auditor

KPMG KPMG is a multinational professional services network, based in London, United Kingdom. As one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, and PwC. KPMG is a network of firms in 145 countries with 275,288 emplo ...

, causing restatement of financial results for the years 1997 through 2000 and fines for both companies

References

External links

33 biggest corporate implosions

Five Omissions that will lead your company or Market to Bankruptcy
{{Portal bar, Companies Corporate crime Political corruption Fraud

List of major corporate collapses

List of scandals without insolvency

See also

References

Further reading

External links