List of corporate collapses and scandals


A corporate collapse typically involves the insolvency or bankruptcy of a major business enterprise. A corporate scandal involves alleged or actual unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. Many recent corporate collapses and scandals have involved some type of false or inappropriate accounting.

List of major corporate collapses

The following list of corporations involved major collapses, through the risk of job losses or size of the business, and meant entering into insolvency or bankruptcy, or being nationalised or requiring a non-market loan by a government.
NameHQDateBusinessCausesAssets
Medici BankFlorenceBankingOwned by the Medici family, it ran up large debts due to the family's profligate spending, extravagant lifestyle, and failure to control the managers.
Mississippi CompanyFranceColonialismScottish economist John Law convinced the French government to support a monopoly trade venture in Louisiana. He marketed shares based on great wealth, which was highly exaggerated. A speculative bubble grew and then collapsed, and Law was expelled.
South Sea CompanyGreat BritainSlavery and colonialismAfter the War of Spanish Succession, Great Britain signed the Treaty of Utrecht 1713 with Spain, ostensibly allowing it to trade in the seas near South America. In fact, barely any trade took place as Spain renounced the Treaty, however, this was concealed on the British stock market. A speculative bubble saw the share price reach over £1000 in August 1720, but then crash in September. A Parliamentary inquiry revealed fraud among members of the government, including the Conservative Party Chancellor of the Exchequer John Aislabie, who was sent to prison.
Dutch East India CompanyBatavian Republic31 December 1799ColonialismThis huge early publicly listed multinational company founded in 1602 fell victim to declining markets in the late 18th century, internal corruption and excessive distribution of dividends, and finally Anglo-Dutch wars. It was nationalised by the Batavian Republic in 1796 but nevertheless closed down at the end of 1799.
Overend, Gurney & CoUnited KingdomBankingAfter Samuel Gurney's retirement, the bank invested heavily in railway stocks. It went public in 1865, but was badly affected by a general fall in stock prices. The Bank of England refused to advance money, and it collapsed. The directors were sued, but exonerated from fraud.
Friedrich KruppGermanySteel, metalsKrupp's business over-expanded, and had to take a 30m Mark loan from the Preußische Bank, the Bank of Prussia.
DanatbankGermany13 July 1931BankingAt the start of the Great Depression, after rumours about the solvency of the Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei, there was a bank run, and Danatbank was forced into insolvency.
Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining CorpUnited States16 Nov 1963CommoditiesCommodities trader Tino De Angelis defrauded clients, including the Bank of America into thinking he was trading vegetable oil. He got loans and made money using the oil as collateral. He showed inspectors tankers of water, with a bit of oil on the surface. When the fraud was exposed, the business collapsed.
Herstatt BankWest Germany26 June 1974BankingSettlement risk. Counterparty banks did not receive their USD payments, where Herstatt had received DEM earlier, prior to government-forced liquidation.
Carrian GroupHong KongReal estateAccounting fraud. An auditor was murdered, an adviser committed suicide. The largest collapse in Hong Kong history.
TexacoUnited States13 April 1987OilAfter a legal battle with Pennzoil, whereby it was found to owe a debt of $10.5 bn, Texaco went into bankruptcy. It was later resurrected and taken over by Chevron.
QintexAustraliaReal estateQintex CEO Christopher Skase was found to have improperly used his position to obtain management fees prior to the $1.5 billion collapse of Qintex including $700m unpaid debts. Skase absconded to the Spanish resort island of Majorca. Spain refused extradition for 10 years during which time Skase became a citizen of Dominica.
Lincoln Savings and Loan AssociationUnited StatesBankingFinancial institution that went bust following the Keating Five scandal.
Polly PeckUnited Kingdom30 Oct 1990Electronics, food, textilesAfter a raid by the UK Serious Fraud Office in September 1990, the share price collapsed. The CEO Asil Nadir was convicted of stealing the company's money.
Bank of Credit & Commerce InternationalUnited Kingdom5 July 1991BankingBreach of US law, by owning another bank. Fraud, money laundering and larceny. Better known as BCCI.
NordbankenSwedenBankingFollowing market deregulation, there was a housing price bubble, and it burst. As part of a general rescue as the 1990–1994 Swedish financial crisis unfolded, Nordbanken was nationalised for 64 billion kronor. It was later merged with Götabanken, which itself had to write off 37.3% of its creditors, and is now known as Nordea.
Barings BankUnited Kingdom26 Feb 1995BankingAn employee in Singapore, Nick Leeson, traded futures, signed off on his own accounts and became increasingly indebted. The London directors were subsequently disqualified, as being unfit to run a company in Re Barings plc (No 5).
Bre-XCanadaMiningAfter widespread reports that Bre-X had found a gold mine in Indonesia, the stories were found to be fraudulent.
LiventCanadaEntertainmentIn November 1998, Livent sought bankruptcy protection in the US and Canada, claiming a debt of $334 million. Garth Drabinsky, co-founder of Livent, was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery. A judgment has been obtained against Deloitte & Touche in respect of Deloitte's negligence in conducting the audit for Livent's 1997 fiscal year.
Long-Term Capital ManagementUnited States23 Sep 1998Hedge fundAfter purporting to have discovered a scientific method of calculating derivative prices, LTCM lost $4.6bn in the first few months of 1998, and was rescued by a private sector consortium.$3.6 billion
FlowTexGermanyMachineryFlowTex operated a Ponzi scheme in which non-existing construction equipment was sold to investors in order to immediately be leased back by FlowTex. This required an exponentially growing number of investors to afford the lease payments. The fraud was the largest corporate scandal in German history and caused financial damages of about 4.9bn DM.
Equitable Life Assurance SocietyUnited Kingdom8 Dec 2000InsuranceThe insurance company's directors unlawfully used money from people holding guaranteed annuity rate policies to subsidise people with current annuity rate policies. After a House of Lords judgment in Equitable Life Assurance Society v Hyman, the Society closed. Though never technically insolvent, the UK government set up a compensation scheme for policyholders under the Equitable Life (Payments) Act 2010.
CINARCanadaAnimationMicheline Charest and Ronald Weinberg, the co-founders of this animation studio, were accused of transferring over $120 million to the Bahamas without the approval of its board of directors. The company was later sold in 2004 to a consortium that includes Nelvana founder Michael Hirsch and was subsequently renamed Cookie Jar Group. Cookie Jar in turn was acquired in 2012 by what is now called WildBrain. In 2016, Weinberg was sentenced to 8 years and 11 months in prison, and is currently on parole.
HIH InsuranceAustralia15 March 2001InsuranceIn early 2000, after an increase in the size of the business, it was determined that the insurance company's solvency was marginal, and a small asset price change could see the insurance company become insolvent. It did. Director Rodney Adler, CEO Ray Williams and others were sentenced to prison for fraudulent activity.
Pacific Gas & Electric CompanyUnited States6 April 2001EnergyAfter a change in regulation in California, PG&E determined it was unable to continue delivering power, and despite the California Public Utilities Commission's efforts, it went into bankruptcy, leaving homes without energy. It emerged again in 2004.
One.TelAustralia29 May 2001TelecommsAfter becoming one of the largest Australian public companies, losses of $290m were reported, the share price crashed, and it entered administration. In ASIC v Rich the directors were found not to have been guilty of negligence.
SwissairSwitzerland2 Oct 2001AviationOverexpansion in the late 1990s and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks led to a dramatic fall in share prices. In 2007, several of the company's board members were charged over the airline's bankruptcy. Assets were taken over by subsidiary Crossair which became Swiss International Air Lines, eventually purchased by Lufthansa of Germany.
EnronUnited States28 Nov 2001EnergyDirectors and executives fraudulently concealed large losses in Enron's projects. A number were sentenced to prison.$63.4 billion
Chiquita Brands IntUnited States28 Nov 2001FoodAccumulated debts, after a series of accusations relating to breaches of labour and environmental standards. It entered a pre-packaged insolvency, and emerged with similar management in 2002.
KmartUnited States22 Jan 2002RetailAfter difficult competition, the store was put into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, but soon re-emerged.
Adelphia CommunicationsUnited States13 Feb 2002Cable televisionInternal corruption. The Directors were sentenced to prison.
Arthur AndersenUnited States15 June 2002AccountingA US court convicted Andersen of obstruction of justice by shredding documents relating to the Enron scandal.
WorldComUnited States21 July 2002TelecommsAfter falling share prices, and a failed share buy back scheme, it was found that the directors had used fraudulent accounting methods to push up the stock price. Rebranded MCI, it emerged from bankruptcy in 2004 and the assets were bought by Verizon.
ParmalatItaly24 Dec 2003FoodThe company's finance directors concealed large debts.
MG Rover GroupUnited Kingdom15 April 2005AutomobilesAfter diminishing demand, and getting a £6.5m loan from the UK government in April 2005, the company went into administration. After the loss of 30,000 jobs, Nanjing Automobile Group bought the company's assets.
Bayou Hedge Fund GroupUnited States29 Sep 2005Hedge fundSamuel Israel III defrauded his investors into thinking there were higher returns, and orchestrated fake audits. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a court complaint and the business was shut down after the directors were caught attempting to send $100m into overseas bank accounts.
RefcoUnited States17 Oct 2005BrokerAfter becoming a public company in August 2005, it was revealed that Phillip R. Bennett, the company's CEO and chairman, had concealed $430m of bad debts. Its underwriters were Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America Corp. The company entered Chapter 11 and Bennett was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Bear StearnsUnited States14 Mar 2008BankingBear Stearns invested in the subprime mortgage market in 2003 after the US government had begun to deregulate consumer protection and derivative trading. The business collapsed as more people began to be unable to meet mortgage obligations. After a stock price high of $172 a share, it was bought by JP Morgan for $2 a share on 16 March 2008, with a $29bn loan facility guaranteed by the US Federal Reserve.
Northern RockUnited Kingdom22 Feb 2008BankingNorthern Rock had invested in the international markets for sub-prime mortgage debt, and as more and more people defaulted on their home loans in the US, the Rock's business collapsed. It triggered the first bank run in the UK since Overend, Gurney & Co in 1866, when it asked the UK government for assistance. It was nationalised, and then sold to Virgin Money in 2012.
IndyMacUnited States11 July 2008BankingIndyMac invested heavily in Alt-A mortgages and reverse mortgages. After many of these loans failed and couldn't be sold during the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis the company had to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Lehman BrothersUnited States15 Sep 2008Banking
Lehman Brothers' financial strategy in 2003 was to invest heavily in mortgage debt, in markets which were being deregulated from consumer protection by the US government. Losses mounted, and Lehman Brothers was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the US government refused to extend a loan. The collapse triggered a global financial market meltdown. Barclays, Nomura and Bain Capital purchased the assets which were not indebted.
AIGUnited States16 Sep 2008InsuranceOut of $441 billion worth of securities originally rated AAA, as the US sub-prime mortgage crisis unfolded, AIG found it held $57.8 billion of these products. It was forced to take a 24-month credit facility from the US Federal Reserve Board.
Washington MutualUnited States26 Sep 2008BankingFollowing the sub-prime mortgage crisis, there was a bank run on WaMu, and pressure from the FDIC forced closure.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group United Kingdom13 Oct 2008BankingFollowing the takeover of ABN-Amro, and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, RBS found itself insolvent as the international credit market seized up. 58% of the shares were bought by the UK government.
ABN-AmroNetherlandsBankingAfter a takeover battle between Banco Santander, Fortis and RBS, ABN-Amro was split up and divided between the banking consortium. Fortis and RBS were found to be heavily indebted due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Fortis was split and the Dutch part of Fortis was taken under government ownership by The Netherlands, thus reinstating the company in ABN-Amro The Belgian part was taken over by BNP-Paribas. RBS was taken under government ownership by the UK.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment SecuritiesUnited StatesSecuritiesTricked investors out of $64.8 billion through the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Investors were paid returns out of their own money or that of other investors rather than from profits.
Bernie Madoff told his sons about his scheme and they reported him to the SEC. He was arrested the next day.		$64.8 billion
BankwestAustraliaBankingFollowing the purchase of Bankwest by the Commonwealth Bank, there have been calls for a royal commission specifically into the conduct of the bank following allegations made that the CBA engineered defaults of Bankwest customers in order to profit from clawback clauses under the purchase agreement.
NortelCanada14 Jan 2009TelecommsFollowing the 2008 financial crisis, and allegations over excessive executive pay, demand for products dropped.
Anglo Irish BankIreland15 Jan 2009BankingAfter the 2008 financial crisis, the bank was forced to be nationalised by the Irish government.
ArcandorGermany9 June 2009RetailAfter struggling to maintain business levels at its brand names Karstadt and KaDeWe, Arcandor sought help from the German government, and then filed for insolvency.
Hypo Real EstateGermanyBankingDepfa, one of the companies subsidiaries ran into liquidity problems in 2008 as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. This combined with heavy losses reported by Hypo Real Estate itself led to a bailout by the Deutsche Bundesbank and later to a complete nationalization of the company.
SchleckerGermany23 Jan 2012RetailAfter continual losses mounting from 2011 Schlecker, with 52,000 employees, was forced into insolvency, though continued to run.
DynegyUnited States6 July 2012EnergyAfter a series of attempted takeover bids, and a finding of fraud in a subsidiary's purchase of another subsidiary, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It emerged from bankruptcy on 2 October 2012.
China Medical Technologies Cayman Islands27 July 2012Medical technologyIn 2009, an anonymous letter alleging possible illegal and fraudulent activities by management since 2007 was sent to KPMG Hong Kong, then CMED's auditor, and investigated by law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. Since 27 July 2012, pursuant to an Order by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, CMED has been under the control of Joint Official Liquidators. Post-bankruptcy filing, CMED's liquidator found itself probing an alleged $355 million insider fraud. In March 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice criminally indicted the CMED founder and CEO, as well as the former Chief Financial Officer, charging them with securities fraud and wire fraud conspiracy for stealing more than $400 million from investors as part of a seven-year scheme.
National Bank of Anguilla and Caribbean Commercial BankAnguilla12 August 2013BankingIn 2013, the two indigenous banks of Anguilla were intervened in by the East Caribbean Central Bank due to alleged irregular loan practices. After 3 years, both banks were put into bankruptcy, a new nationalized bank was created and the assets of the two bankrupt banks and the bank accounts of local account holders were transferred to the new bank and the local depositors were made whole by stealing about $180 million of money belonging foreign depositors, who lost their entire savings. The central bank was accused of fleecing foreign depositors.
Banco Espírito Santo Portugal3 August 2014BankingAn audit performed in 2013, for a capital raise performed in May 2014, uncovered severe financial irregularities and a precarious financial situation of the bank. In July 2014, Salgado was replaced by economist Vítor Bento, who saw BES in an irrecoverable situation. Its good assets were bought by Novo Banco, a vehicle founded by Portugal's financial regulators for that purpose, on August 3, which hired Bento as CEO, while its toxic assets stayed in the "old" BES, which got its banking license revoked by Portugal's regulators.
Dick SmithAustralia5 January 2016RetailOn 5 January 2016, the retailer collapsed and was placed into receivership. McGrathNicol were appointed as administrators by the company's board and Ferrier Hodgson appointed by the company's major creditors National [Australia Bank] and HSBC Bank Australia.
TheranosUnited StatesHealth careTheranos claimed to have developed devices to automate and miniaturize blood tests using microscopic blood volumes. Theranos dubbed its blood collection vessel the "nanotainer" and its analysis machine the "Edison". Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO, reportedly named the device "Edison" after inventor Thomas Edison, stating, "We tried everything else and it failed, so let's call it the Edison." This was likely because of a well-known Edison quote: "I've not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
WirecardGermanyBanking, Money transfer€1.9 billion, which apparently never existed, was found missing in a special audit. The CEO was arrested, the board filed for insolvency, and a warrant for the missing COO was issued.
FTXBahamasCryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency exchangeCEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigns and FTX (company) files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. John J. Ray III, the same attorney who oversaw the liquidation of Enron, is appointed CEO.
Silicon Valley Bank United StatesMarch 2023BankingSilicon Valley Bank lost money on bonds, prompting a run on the bank. The FDIC placed the bank into receivership, and its US assets were acquired by First Citizens BancShares and its UK assets were acquired by HSBC.
Signature BankUnited StatesMarch 2023BankingDue to losses and a bank run, prompted by the preceding collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the FDIC placed the bank into receivership.
First Republic BankUnited StatesMay 2023BankingDue to a global banking panic, mainly from the preceding collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, a bank run forced the bank to be placed into receivership by the FDIC and then sold to JPMorgan Chase
Signa HoldingAustriaNovember 2023Real Estate, RetailThe company collapsed in 2023 with €23 billion of insolvencies.
VShojoUnited States24 July 2025EntertainmentVShojo announced that it would be ceasing operations in July 2025 following allegations that it mishandled money intended for charity, leading to all of its talents cutting ties with the company.

List of scandals without insolvency