Enronitis
As Enronitis was established in 2002 the loss of confidence in balance sheets and accounting practices in particular American public companies referred. The name is derived from the collapsed company Enron and was supplemented by the disease-resembling suffix -itis , since, based on the Enron scandal, more and more companies had to admit accounting errors and the enronitis seemed to spread like a disease. (Note: In medicine, the ending -itis actually means that it is an inflammation and not that the disease is contagious.)
After Enron itself, especially the companies Worldcom and Qwest , but also European companies such as Ahold or Bankgesellschaft Berlin were described in the media as "infected with the Enronitis virus".
The events resulted in a drastic tightening of the American legal requirements for corporate reporting, the so-called Sarbanes-Oxley Act .
Stock exchange news of 2002
The Düsseldorf stock exchange named "Enronitis" as the stock market unword of the year, as this term equates the misconduct of a few companies listed on the stock exchange with a disease-like disease course such as an epidemic.
literature
- Stock market virus enronitis becomes an epidemic . In: Die Welt , June 6, 2002