PrintOverview
On December 2, 2001, Enron Corp., at the time the world's largest energy trading company, declared bankruptcy, causing a loss of $11 billion dollars for its shareholders and billions more for its trading counterparties. At the time, it was the largest bankruptcy filing in US history. As events unfolded and the investigations took place, it was revealed that there were several "off-sheet," "paper" companies churning-out false earnings. These were "mark-to-market," unrealized earnings that had no cash gains associated with them. Ultimately, it was a lack of controls, or a failure to adhere to them, that allowed this to occur. Top executives at Enron were convicted and sent to prison, and their outside auditors, Arthur-Andersen, would go out of business.
In this lesson, we will learn about other famous cases where financial disasters took place due to a lack of controls and oversight. We will explore concepts such as "mark-to-market," and "Value at Risk," both financial risk measures that are mandatory for today's publicly-traded energy companies.
Learning Outcomes
At the successful completion of this lesson, students should be able to:
- Be familiar with famous case studies prompting risk control measures.
- Understand how and why risk controls were implemented in the energy industry.
- Define risk control responsibilities and key risk measures.
- Be able to recognize a proper risk control structure.
What is due for Lesson 12?
This lesson will take us one week to complete. There are a number of required activities in this module. The chart below provides an overview of the activities for Lesson 12. For assignment details, refer to the location noted.
All assignments will be due Sunday, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
REQUIREMENT | LOCATION | SUBMITTING YOUR WORK |
|---|---|---|
| Reading Assignment: Case Studies | Reading Assignment page | No submission |
| Mini-Lecture: Risk Control | Mini-Lecture: Risk Control page | No submission |
| Lesson Activity: Baring's Bank Case Study Analysis | Lesson Activity page | Submitted through course blog |
| Lesson 12 Quiz | Summary and Final tasks page | Submitted through ANGEL |
Questions?
If you have any questions, please post them to our Questions? discussion forum (not e-mail), located under the Communicate tab in ANGEL. The TA and I will check that discussion forum daily to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.