Enron

Enron was an energy-trading and utilities company based in Houston, Texas, that perpetrated one of the biggest accounting frauds in history. Enron’s executives employed accounting practices that falsely inflated the company’s revenues and, for a time, made it the seventh-largest corporation in the United States. Once the fraud came to light, the company quickly unraveled, and it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001.