Investment Banks: The Role of Firms and Their Analysts with Enron and Global Crossing

摘要

The publicity surrounding Enron Corporation's (Enron) bankruptcy and the effect on the company's stockholders and employees has generated a debate on the activities of investment banks and their role in Enron's collapse. Publicly available reports describe complex financial transactions among Enron, various investment banks, and a variety of special purpose entities (SPE) that have raised questions about whether investment banks knowingly and substantially assisted Enron in deceiving the public about Enron's true financial condition. In the wake of this and other recent corporate scandals, the Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), which contains multiple accounting, corporate governance, and other reform requirements.