Leadership Benchmarketing

The Enron Scandal

Enron is a natural gas pipeline company based in Houston. In 2001, Enron became the 7th largest company in the United States. Enron was involved in electronic energy trading, energy brokering, and options trading.

• On October 16, 2001, the Enron Company announces a third-quarter loss of $618 million.

• On October 17, 2001, Enron reduces share cost by $1.2 billion.

• On October 22, 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) begins and investigation looking at Enron’s Company Practices and auditors.

• On November 8, 2001, Enron says that the profits are overstated by the previous five years.

• On December 2, 2001, Enron Company files for bankruptcy protection.

In an investigative finding, Enron senior management used complex and murky accounting schemes to

• Cut Enron’s tax payments.

• Increase income and profits.

• Increase stock price and credit ratings.

• Hide the losses in the off-balance-sheet subsidiaries.

• Persuade off-balance-sheet schemes to focus money to themselves, friends, and family.

• Falsely misrepresent the company’s financial situation in public reports.

The Enron’s schemes started in 1993, ending in 2001. Enron used partnership to hide the company’s bad bets that the company made by selling the assets to the partnership in return for IOUs backed by Enron stock as collateral, over one billion dollars. Enron always found a partnerships to take at least three percent stake, as long as Enron found partnership to take the three percent, Enron was not required to report the partners financial condition in Enron’s financial statement. Since 1993, Enron developed over 3,000 partnerships, Enron first teamed with a California Public Retirement System company called Calpers. As a team they created a Joint Energy Development Investments.

This action was filed in Huston, Texas federal court, under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The outcome was on:

• July 24, 2006 вЂ" Enron attorney “announces Final Approval of the $37.5 million dollar Enron Partial Settlement to pay claims to all persons who were participants or beneficiaries in the Plans during the period from January 1, 1995 through December 2, 2001 (“Class Period”). The Partial Settlement resolves claims against The Northern Trust Company” (2006).

• “June 9, 2006 - Class Counsel filed their papers in support of their petition for an award of attorney’s fees, reimbursement of expenses, and an incentive award for the Class Representatives. As previously provided in the notice concerning the partial settlement with Northern Trust, they have asked for 20% of the total amounts recovered in all partial settlements in the litigation, including interest, for the 56,500 hours they have worked on the case, seek reimbursement of expenses in the amount of $874,902.74, and have asked the Court to award each of the Class Representatives an additional $7,000.00 for services to the classes in this case” (2006).

• “Approximately 20,000 current and former Enron Corp. employees who lost money in their retirement plans when the company collapsed in late 2001 will participate in an $85 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit.

The tentative settlement, filed yesterday, would be the largest to date for a case involving company stock in retirement plans, said Lynn Sarko, the attorney representing the employees. Earlier this year, employees of Global Crossing Ltd. settled for $79 million, and employees of Lucent Technologies Inc. settled for $69 million” (2006).

Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk is a healthcare company that focuses on diabetes care. Novo Nordisk has one of the broadest product portfolios in the industry, the most advanced products in the area of insulin delivery systems. Novo Nordisk markets its products in 179 countries and employs more than 18,000 people. Novo Nordisk has a position in growth hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy.

Novo Nordisk uses “triple bottom line” to indicate in terms of financial, social and environmental responsibility. TBL is an important part for decision-making processes because it builds the company business in financially profitable, environmentally sound and socially responsible. The action involves taking care of the needs of all its stakeholders, shareholders, employees, customers, partners, communities and the public.

To put the TBL into action, Novo Nordisk developed the TakeAction! Program. The company uses the program to enhance this integration and to create a TBL mindset for the future employees and the public. TakeAction! is mainly done by an employee who signs a commitment form stating that he or she will use the TBL everyday. The concept of the TakeAction! is to inform, inspire, and support employees to initiate and drive social environmental activities. This program started in January 2003 at the company’s International Meeting for top managers.

The TakeAction! website was launched in 2003 and the company is targeting to communicate general information about the program and shares the company’s best practices. On the company website employees or the public can donate or sponsor diabetes program in developing countries through an automatic monthly contribution. People can donate throughout the nation; employees can also sign-up to volunteer.

In April 2003, Novo Nordisk had a volunteer opportunity where employees from all across the world can volunteer three weeks at a local diabetes center in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The volunteers were invited to use his or hers competencies to help create the center’s expertise in close collaboration with the local staff. The Novo Nordisk contributed to the TBL by alerting people about diabetes in Tanzania, helping employees with a better understanding about diabetes, building stakeholders trust, and supporting the fight against diabetes.

Novo Nordisk organizes the company’s own events, such as 75 employees and their families planted more than 100 trees at the