White Collar Crime: The Case Of Enron & WorldCom

It has been an interesting week for two of the biggest White Collar criminals in history.

Enron's Fastow gets 6-year sentence
Andrew Fastow, one of the key figures in Enron Corp.'s collapse, was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday.

Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, had agreed to serve a maximum 10-year term when he pleaded guilty in 2004.

His attorneys on Tuesday asked for a lesser sentence, citing Fastow's admission of his guilt and his help in the federal government's successful prosecution of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and the former chief executive, Jeffrey Skilling.

Ex-WorldCom CEO to start prison term
Former WorldCom Corp. chief Bernard Ebbers is set to start a 25-year federal prison sentence on Tuesday for his role in the $11 billion accounting fraud that toppled a company he had built from a tiny telecommunications firm to an industry giant.

Federal prison officials would not confirm where Ebbers will serve his sentence, but the two likeliest prisons are either the Oakdale Correctional Complex in Louisiana or the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

Ebbers left his upscale, brick-and-stucco home in a gated community in the Jackson suburb of Ridgeland about 8 a.m. Tuesday. At his home on Monday, he refused to answer any questions and told an Associated Press reporter to leave.

A federal judge has recommended that Ebbers serve time on fraud and conspiracy charges at a facility in central Mississippi, but there is no guarantee that's where he'll end up.
Ebbers, a former high school basketball coach, took a small telecommunications firm and transformed it into an industry giant before the Clinton, Miss.-based WorldCom collapsed in bankruptcy in 2002.

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It just goes to show that whatever the level of crime, punishment is inevitable for all criminals.

Here are some more high profile corporate scandals (taken from wikipedia)
Adelphia scandal
Bre-X scandal
Clearstream, which has been qualified as "the greatest financial scandal in Luxembourg" (Clearstream is a clearing house, i.e. sort of a "bank of banks", used to centralize credit & debit between banks and other financial organizations). As of 2006, it hasn't been resolved yet.
Compass Group, bribed the United Nations in order to win business.
Enron accounting fraud, involving Arthur Andersen
Exxon overreporting of oil reserves
Fannie Mae underreporting of profit
Ford Pinto scandal
Guinness affair
Hafskip's collapse
Halliburton overcharging government contracts
Harken Energy Scandal
Lernout & Hauspie accounting fraud
One.Tel collapse
Parmalat accounting scandal & mutual fund fraud
Phar-Mor company lied to shareholders. CEO eventually sentenced to prison for fraud and company eventually became bankrupt.
RadioShack CEO David Edmondson lied about attaining a B.A. degree from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California
Refco, Inc. commodities & futures scandal involving hidden debts involving underwritting firms Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Corp.
Royal Dutch Shell overstated its oil reserves twice,it downgraded 3.9 billion barrels, or about 20 percent of its total holdings.
Tyco International
Worldcom