ABSTRACT
A sample of well-publicized frauds that occurred in the pre-Sarbanes–Oxley Act period includes Adelphia Communications, Arthur Andersen, Enron, HealthSouth, ImClone, Tyco, WorldCom Inc., and Xerox. WorldCom Inc. perpetrated one of the largest accounting frauds in history. WorldCom's bankruptcy was also the largest in US history. Adelphia Communications was the nation's sixth largest cable television company. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) called Adelphia's fraud "one of the most extensive financial frauds ever to take place at a public company". Arthur Andersen was a respected member of the Big Four until their criminal involvement in the Enron scandal. Their relationship with Enron began in the early 1990s, when Enron outsourced its internal accounting function to Arthur Andersen. Enron was the first of several major corporate fraud scandals to become public in 2002. In 2003, top executives at HealthSouth were found to have engaged in an accounting scheme that overstated their earnings by an estimated $4 billion.
