Business Atlas

How Enterprise Is Built
Atlas Trail

Collapse and Consequence: A Corporate Scandals Trail

5 stops

From Enron's 2001 collapse through WorldCom's accounting fraud to Lehman Brothers' 2008 bankruptcy, three of the largest corporate failures in American history, and the executive at the center of the first of them.

Stop 1 of 5.
Corporate Events

Enron Corporation's accounting fraud unraveled in 2001 into what was then the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Stop 2 of 5.
Founders, Executives and Management Thinkers

Kenneth Lay, Enron's founder, chairman and CEO, was convicted in 2006 on six counts of conspiracy and fraud for his role in the scandal.

Stop 3 of 5.
Corporate Events

WorldCom's accounting scandal broke in 2002, inflating assets by billions of dollars and dwarfing even Enron's collapse.

Stop 4 of 5.
Corporate Events

The 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the largest in U.S. history, became a defining moment of the global financial crisis.

Stop 5 of 5.
Founders, Executives and Management Thinkers

Bernard Ebbers co-founded WorldCom and led it as CEO until his forced 2002 resignation; he was convicted in 2005 for directing the accounting fraud, giving the trail's WorldCom stop its own human figure alongside Enron's Kenneth Lay.

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