The Rise and Fall of the Enron Empire

Once ranked seventh in the Fortune 500, the American energy giant Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after the SEC exposed a systematic financial fraud scheme that hid billions in debt and inflated profits by $600 million. This massive scandal led to heavy prison sentences for company executives, billions in fines for involved investment banks, and the collapse of Arthur Andersen, which was previously one of the world's top five accounting firms. Triggering a estimated $2.5 trillion loss in U.S. stock market value, the event became a watershed moment for regulatory reform, directly resulting in the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to strengthen corporate oversight.