List of corporate failures and scandals

The following list includes business failures that, at the time of their occurrence, had major economic or political consequences, and some of which resulted from or were associated with economic or political scandals . This list is not intended to contain a complete enumeration of insolvency cases, but rather to include bankruptcies which, due to their accompanying circumstances and effects, were treated in the media in their time and received a great deal of public and national attention.

Business failures

Surname	country	date	Business area	Brief description
Banco Medici	Florence	1494	Banks	Due to the interplay of several political problems and an unstable overall economic situation, the Medici family's banking house , which once served as the economic pillar of the city of Florence and looked after the papal finances, got into financial difficulties and the bank had to be wound up.
Dutch East India Company	Netherlands Netherlands	Dec 31, 1799	trade	The VOC , which is heavily influenced by corruption, made losses towards the end of the 18th century due to a reduced demand for exotic spices and the fourth Anglo-Dutch War . The bankrupt company had to be dissolved from 1798, the remaining assets and debts of the VOC were nationalized by the Batavian Republic .
Ohio Life Insurance Company	United States United States	Aug 24, 1857	Banks	The economic crisis of 1857 is one of the first world economic crises . It began in New York City on August 24, 1857, when the Ohio Life Insurance Company bank had to stop making payments. From there the crisis spread rapidly across the world and lasted until 1859. The financial centers of Europe and America were particularly hard hit, but the effects of the crisis were also felt in the colonies. In the United States, over 5,000 companies went bankrupt.
Overend, Gurney and Co.	United Kingdom United Kingdom	Aug 1866	Banks	Long-term investments in the rail transport sector resulted in the liquidity of the financial institution falling below a critical level. After an IPO in 1865, the share price fell sharply as a result of a general bear market . Share certificates in railway companies in which Overend, Gurney and Co. was invested were also affected by share prices. With the Bank of England refusing to shore up the company, Overend, Gurney and Co. went bankrupt in 1866, triggering Black Friday of 1866.
Danatbank	German Empire German Empire	July 13, 1931	Banks	The formerly second largest German bank got into trouble when a large number of foreign customers withdrew their deposits in 1931 and the Delmenhorster Nordwolle group was embroiled in a balance sheet fraud scandal. Due to default by the borrower Nordwolle, 45 million Reichsmarks had to be written off. The later insolvency triggered a bank run .
Kahn Group	German Empire German Empire	1932	Industrial holding	The holding company Richard Kahn GmbH previously comprised several companies in the German mechanical engineering sector. A high level of debt due to an aggressive expansion policy put the conglomerate under pressure early on. The unprofitability of several group companies, which was initially offset by profit and loss sharing within the group, led to the bankruptcy of the group in 1932 and the separation of a large part of the subsidiaries.
Borgward	Germany Germany	1961	Automotive industry	The automobile manufacturer Borgward was formerly an important employer in the city of Bremen. Due to an excessive variety of models and neglected business management, the company ran into financial difficulties and was dependent on repeated borrowing. When the financial situation of Borgwards became public, the Bremen Senate was forced to withdraw a guarantee for a loan of 10 million Deutschmarks in 1961 . The banks involved then no longer released any funds. In February 1961, the Senate presented company founder Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Borgward with the decision to transfer his company to the state of Bremen or to go bankrupt. Carl FW Borgward agreed and transferred his company to the country, but the vehicle plants later had to be completely wound up. Although all creditor claims were covered after the collapse, a considerable part of the jobs were lost.
Penn Central	United States United States	June 21, 1970	Rail transport	With the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad to Penn Central Transportation in 1968, the largest railway company and the sixth largest industrial company in the United States was created. The unsuccessful merger and the difficult environment led to such high losses within a very short time that the banks did not issue any further liquidity loans after around two years and had to file for bankruptcy. This was the largest bankruptcy in American economic history to date. There was a risk that rail traffic in the northeastern United States would collapse, so that in 1976 the state rescue company Conrail was founded.
Herstatt Bank	Germany Germany	June 26, 1974	Banks	Foreign exchange speculation by the bank got them into trouble. The false assumption that the US dollar would rise after the 1973 oil crisis resulted in high losses in Herstatt, which soon exceeded equity by far. Over- indebtedness led to the withdrawal of the banking license and the liquidation of the bank. The collapse of the Herstatt Bank was at its time the largest bank failure in the history of the Federal Republic.
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad	United States United States	1975	Rail transport	In the early 1960s, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad wanted to merge. It took the Interstate Commerce Commission until 1975 to approve the merger. In the meantime, the Rock Island had hardly invested in maintaining the railway infrastructure, so that the Union Pacific decided to withdraw from the merger. Immediately after the decision of the ICC, the railway company had to file for bankruptcy. In 1980 the bankruptcy judge decided that the company could no longer be saved and was therefore broken up.
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad	United States United States	Dec. 19, 1977	Rail transport	The railway company drove losses in the 1970s due to the increased competitive pressure from other railway companies and modes of transport, as well as bad management decisions, so that in 1977 bankruptcy had to be filed. As a result, the network of the railway company was reduced by more than half (including the transcontinental railway line) and finally sold in 1985 to the Soo Line .
Chemical factory Stoltzenberg	Germany Germany	6 Sep 1979	chemistry	The Hamburg chemical company, founded by Hugo Stoltzenberg in 1923, produced a large number of chemical warfare agents without having the permits required by the War Weapons Control Act . Among other things, several kilograms of nitrogen mustard were delivered to the Bundeswehr for test purposes . An investigation was opened after a child was killed playing with chemicals in an explosion in the basement of a residential building on September 6, 1979. It was found that for decades children had been able to break into the inadequately secured company premises and repeatedly stole material. In some cases, the Stoltzenberg chemical factory even stored toxins in the open air. The seized substances included 35 liters of tabun , four liters of nitrogen mustard, two liters of thiophosgene , two kilograms of chloropicrin , 12 steel bottles with phosgene and chlorine , 50 kilograms of bromoacetone and ten kilograms of white phosphorus . The company was dissolved in 1979 and the earth on the factory premises was removed to a depth of around 2.5 meters.
Vienna Woods	Germany Germany	August 27, 1982	gastronomy	Wienerwald was the largest restaurant chain in Germany and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, but the growth was largely financed through loans. In 1982 the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article in which the company's creditworthiness was questioned. The banks reacted immediately by demanding immediate repayment of the loans. On August 27, 1982 Wienerwald-Holding AG and the owner Friedrich Jahn had to file for bankruptcy. Although the company was able to recover initially, the Wienerwald affair broke out a few years later : At the end of June 1986, Renate Thyssen acquired the then troubled catering company from Bayerische Landesbank , Dresdner Bank and two Swiss banks for 12 million francs instead of the originally estimated 40 million DM . Thyssen acted as a front man for Jahn, as an option provided for the later takeover by Jahn. The political affair arose because Thyssen's financial advisor, Dieter Krautzig, represented the interests of both Bayerische Landesbank and Thyssens in the collecting society and because Landesbank President Ludwig Huber had a relationship with Thyssen at the time.
IBH Holding	Germany Germany	Nov 4, 1983	Construction machinery	Through a series of company acquisitions, IBH-Holding rose to become one of the largest construction machinery manufacturers in the world in the 1970s. The largest takeovers included those of Hanomag and that of the GM construction machinery brand Terex in 1980 and 1981. Due to a deteriorating market environment and poor integration of the companies taken over, the indebted group was increasingly falling into a crisis. The collapse followed in 1983 and in turn triggered a crisis at the SMH bank .
Texaco	United States United States	Apr 13, 1987	oil	Oil giant Texaco went bankrupt in 1987 after losing a legal battle with Pennzoil over the takeover of Getty Oil two years earlier . Texaco was fined $ 10.53 billion. The company was later released from the bankruptcy proceedings and continued to exist until it was taken over by Chevron .
co op AG	Germany Germany	1988	retail trade	Through balance sheet manipulation and asset shifts, a debt of five billion marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: the equivalent of 4.5 billion euros) became known. In total, the co op board of directors under Bernd Otto had defrauded several banks by two billion marks. The company was broken up as a result of the co op scandal, one of the biggest economic scandals in German post-war history at the time.
Lincoln Savings and Loan Association	United States United States	1989	Banks	The US savings bank collapsed as part of the savings and loan crisis and sparked a corruption scandal when it became known that several politicians had allegedly saved the company from an investigation by the regulator. The accused politicians also included John McCain and John Glenn , but they were acquitted by an ethics committee of the US Senate.
New home	Germany Germany	1990	property	The Neue Heimat was a non-profit housing association owned by the German Federation of Trade Unions . On February 8, 1982, a Spiegel article announced that Albert Vietor's management had personally enriched itself by founding their own companies through straw men and assigning them to Neue Heimat at inflated prices. This scandal came to be known as the New Home Affair. Due to mismanagement and personal enrichment, the debt burden of Neue Heimat grew to several hundred million marks. An expert opinion later came to the conclusion that Albert Vietor was responsible for a loss of DM 105 million through his private business alone . The temporary takeover of the highly indebted company by the bakery entrepreneur Horst Schiesser for a symbolic mark in September 1986 was reversed in November of the same year because the banks involved did not accept Schiesser's restructuring plan. By 1990 the existing properties were sold and the Neue Heimat dissolved.
Bank of Credit and Commerce International	United Kingdom United Kingdom	5th July 1991	Banks	The money house, with deposits of around 25 billion US dollars, has been involved in money laundering, bribery, arms trafficking and terrorism support. The Guardian described the events as "the greatest fraud in world history".
Balsam AG	Germany Germany	1994	Sports supplies	The former world market leader for sports flooring pursued an uneconomical policy with dumping prices and ill-considered acquisitions. These circumstances should be covered up with fake invoices. At the time of the bankruptcy, company assets of around 10 million euros were offset by claims worth 1.98 billion euros.
Barings Bank	United Kingdom United Kingdom	Feb 26, 1995	Banks	The UK's oldest investment bank fell victim to $ 1.4 billion in losses caused by speculation by derivatives trader Nick Leeson . Barings was taken over by the ING Groep for a symbolic price of one pound .
Bremen volcano	Germany Germany	1996	Shipbuilding	The Bremer Vulkan was one of the most important large shipyards in Germany, which filed for bankruptcy in 1996 and ceased operations in 1997. After taking over large parts of the East German marine industry at the beginning of the 1990s, the volcano soon ran into liquidity problems. As a result of the subsequent liquidation of the company, around 9,000 of the former 23,000 employees lost their jobs. After the collapse, legal investigations dealt with the misappropriation of around 850 million D-Marks in European subsidies that were originally intended for the rehabilitation of the East German shipyards.
Südmilch	Germany Germany	1996	dairy	At the beginning of the 1990s, Südmilch AG was the largest German dairy group, but then the Südmilch scandal about manager Wolfgang Weber got rolling: in 1990, Sachsenmilch AG was founded under the leadership of Südmilch AG , whose management functions largely consisted of people from Südmilch Board were filled. According to investigations by the public prosecutor's office, financial problems in the implementation of the project became apparent as early as 1991. Weber defrauded the stock corporation by around 38 million DM . He succeeded in this fraud of millions through a manager (accomplice) at Deutsche Bank , who presented falsified bank documents (balance sheets) to the then chairman of the supervisory board of Südmilch AG, Friedrich Wilhelm Schnitzler , and deceived other parties involved. Several Südmilch managers were sentenced to long prison terms, Südmilch AG filed for bankruptcy and was taken over by the Dutch FrieslandCampina group.
Bre-X	Canada Canada	May 8, 1997	Mining	The Canadian mining company claimed it discovered one of the largest gold deposits in the world in Indonesia. It was only after a considerable period of time that it became clear that virtually all test wells in the exploration area had been falsified on site. Instead of whole drill cores, only ground and falsified rock samples were sent to independent laboratories. At its heyday, the company was one of the largest stocks listed on the TSX .
Long-Term Capital Management	United States United States	23 Sep 1998	Investment funds	Speculation in bonds within an unstable market (e.g. due to the Russian crisis ) resulted in losses worth billions of dollars. Since it was feared that it would have a severe negative impact on the international financial system, the hedge fund administrator had to receive state support. A settlement followed in 2000.
FlowTex	Germany Germany	2000	Construction machinery	The company FlowTex traded in horizontal drilling machines and committed credit fraud by selling non-existent machines via sale-lease-back contracts and leasing them back immediately. This Ponzi scheme required an ever increasing number of machine sales to cover the leasing payments. There was a financial loss of around 5 billion D-Marks.
Iridium Inc.	United States United States	2000	telecommunications	Iridium Inc. was a US communications network operator that maintained 73 satellites for satellite communications . Due to serious miscalculations - the usage costs were around 8 dollars per minute, with which only around 55,000 users could be acquired, instead of the planned 2 million - the company went into bankruptcy in 2000. For the old investors, including the Motorola group, about $ 5 billion was lost. Majority owner Motorola has even planned to destroy all 73 of the company's satellites by burning them up in the earth's atmosphere . These plans were not implemented because the Iridium communications system was taken over by Boeing that same year .
Pacific Gas and Electric	United States United States	Apr 6, 2001	Supplier	From the summer of 2000, the great Californian energy crisis ensured that PG&E had to purchase electricity more expensively than it could be sold again due to fixed end-user prices. PG&E had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was only released from the proceedings in 2004. A major driver of the crisis was the poor implementation of energy deregulation in California.
WorldCom	United States United States	July 21, 2001	telecommunications	Company founder and CEO Bernard Ebbers borrowed nearly $ 366 million from his company to cover losses from personal derivatives deals . The supervisory board agreed to this in the hope that Ebbers would then not have to sell any of its own shares, which would have further impacted the share price at this point in time. To cover up the situation, balance sheets were falsified and inflated by up to $ 11 billion. The case therefore led to the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act .
Enron	United States United States	Nov 28, 2001	Supplier	Enron caused one of the biggest economic scandals in the United States by extensive falsification of accounts. Among other things, income was booked too early and losses were passed on to other companies that were under Enron's control but were not included in the financial statements. In some cases, inventory valuations were set too high. The bankruptcy wiped out a market value of around 60 billion US dollars.
Comroad	Germany Germany	2002	Telematics	Comroad was one of the best-known companies in the Neuer Markt and developed navigation systems for motor vehicles according to its own information. In 2002, through research by the journalist Renate Daum, it became known that the company carried out a large number of bogus transactions and that around 95% of the reported sales were made up. The company's founder and CEO Bodo Schnabel was sentenced to seven years in prison for course fraud, insider trading and commercial fraud.
Kmart	United States United States	Jan. 22, 2002	retail trade	The former second largest retail chain in the USA could no longer survive in the price war against competitors such as Walmart or Target from the 1990s and was also left behind with regard to the introduction of EDP systems. The bankruptcy was announced in January 2002, but the bankruptcy protection was terminated in May 2003. In 2005 Kmart took over the Sears Group, but the name of the acquired company, Sears, was chosen as the name of the new parent company.
Philipp Holzmann	Germany Germany	March 21, 2002	Construction industry	Philipp Holzmann was formerly one of the largest German construction companies . After a change of chairman in 1997, debts of 3.2 billion DM became known. In 1999, the year of the company's 150th anniversary, the new chairman of the board announced that he was over-indebted due to "hushed up legacy". A loss of 2.4 billion DM was announced in 1999, but this also included operating losses of around 1.1 billion DM in the past financial year. Since initial negotiations with the banks failed, an application for insolvency had to be filed in November of the same year. The reasons for the problems were considered to be extensive management errors, loss-making large projects and a general economic downturn in the construction industry. Balance sheets have been refined over a longer period of time. At Gerhard Schröder's instigation, bank loans totaling one billion DM and a federal guarantee of 250 million DM were resolved through new negotiations . This life-sustaining measure proved unsustainable in March 2002 when the company finally went bankrupt after further losses and had to be wound up.
Swissair	Switzerland Switzerland	March 31, 2002	airline	The national Swiss airline had to file for bankruptcy after the management had run down and over-indebted it through too many high-risk acquisitions and investments in other (sometimes financially stricken) airlines and other companies. Other factors that contributed to this were a lack of supervision by the board of directors and authorities and, finally, the terrorist attacks of September 11th . On March 31, 2002, Swissair had to cease operations. On March 31, 2006, after five years of investigation , the Public Prosecutor III of the Canton of Zurich, responsible for economic crimes, brought indictments against 19 people, including all members of the then Board of Directors, the CEOs and other members of the management, among other things because of unfaithful business management, preferential treatment of creditors, damage to creditors, mismanagement , False notarization and forgery . All of the accused were ultimately acquitted, which met with incomprehension among the population.
Kirch group	Germany Germany	Apr 8, 2002	media	The core of the media group , which included ProSiebenSat.1 , Premiere World , DSF and a large stake in Springer-Verlag , had to file for bankruptcy in April 2002. At that time, the bankruptcy estate also included broadcasting rights for the German Bundesliga and the soccer world championships in 2002 and 2006. Before that, the Group's creditworthiness was massively damaged by the Breuer interview with Deutsche Bank's board spokesman, Rolf-Ernst Breuer . After several years of legal action, Deutsche Bank entered into a settlement of around 925 million euros. Deutsche Bank then registered recourse claims against Breuer, who personally only came up with 3.2 million euros.
Arthur Andersen	United States United States	June 15, 2002	Auditing	Among the clients of the auditing company Arthur Andersen was Enron. The former member of the Big Five of the audit firms was convicted for partially covering up Enron's accounting fraud and for having files relating to the case subsequently shredded. Arthur Andersen was therefore found guilty of the obstruction of justice.
Conseco	United States United States	2002	Financial service providers	Conseco (today: CNO Financial Group) was a financial services group that offered insurance services and, among other things, granted real estate loans. The acquisition of Greentree Financial, a mobile home finance lender , for around six billion dollars in 1998 put Conseco under a growing debt burden. In 2002 Conseco had to file for bankruptcy. At the time, this was the largest corporate bankruptcy after WorldCom and Enron in the United States. In 2003 the insolvency proceedings were ended. Today's CNO Financial Group focuses exclusively on the insurance business.
Parmalat	Italy Italy	Dec 24, 2003	food	The dairy company went bankrupt in 2003 due to insolvency. For years, the balance sheets were manipulated and funds embezzled in favor of other companies of the founder Calisto Tanzi . In 2004 a balance sheet deficit of 23 billion euros was determined. In 2005 the insolvency proceedings were ended.
Heros group of companies	Germany Germany	Feb. 20, 2006	Cash in transit	The Heros Group from Hanover was a large provider of money transport services in Germany. After the loss of a major customer, 27 companies in the group had to file for bankruptcy. In subsequent investigations it became known that the management had embezzled over 270 million euros from the entrusted cash holdings . With the diverted funds, short-term investments were made, with the profits of which the actual business operations could only be financed.
Göttingen Group	Germany Germany	June 2007	Financial service providers	The former main sponsor of VfB Stuttgart sold various investment products, parts of which were found to be criminal by the Braunschweig public prosecutor at the beginning of the 2000s. The Federal Banking Supervisory Office also suspected a fraudulent pyramid scheme behind the group's investment products. However, the following investigations into investment fraud , embezzlement and fraud could not confirm these suspicions. However, the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office brought charges against two board members for delaying bankruptcy and breach of trust, as it was established that the group had already been insolvent in December 2005 and property had been sold, some of the proceeds of which had been misappropriated. As early as 2001, the Partin bank , which belongs to the Göttingen Group, had to be wound up and the bank customers had to be compensated through the deposit protection fund.
Northern Rock	United Kingdom United Kingdom	Feb 22, 2008	Banks	Northern Rock encountered refinancing difficulties as a result of the subprime crisis in 2007 . Speculations about the stability of the banking institute triggered massive withdrawals of deposits by private investors. Northern Rock was nationalized in February 2008 and sold to Virgin Money in 2011 .
Bear Stearns	United States United States	March 14, 2008	Banks	Bear Stearns was one of the first American companies in the financial sector to disappear from the market in the wake of the global financial crisis. Back in 2007, Bear Stearns funds that had invested in bad credit derivatives were making heavy losses and had to be backed by the company. Bear Stearns also had problems with access to the credit market through rumors of deteriorating liquidity and thus actually liquidity bottlenecks. In view of this situation, the major bank JPMorgan Chase and the Fed made a bridging loan available. On May 30, 2008, Bear Stearns was acquired by JPMorgan Chase.
Lehman Brothers	United States United States	Sep 15 2008	Banks	The investment bank Lehman Brothers wrote off 3.3 billion US dollars in the course of the real estate crisis and had to carry out capital increases in the billions in April and June 2008 . Bankruptcy was filed on September 15, 2008. In contrast to the cases of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the US federal government was no longer willing to carry out rescue measures, partly due to increasing political pressure.
AIG	United States United States	16 Sep 2008	insurance	The insurer AIG suffered write-downs of $ 11 billion on its credit insurance portfolio during the subprime crisis. In the course of the largest financial state support for a private company in the history of the United States, the Federal Reserve granted a loan to the value of 85 billion dollars, in return 79.9% of the company's shares went into the hands of the central bank.
Washington Mutual	United States United States	26 Sep 2008	Banks	Washington Mutual (WaMu) has also been hit by investments in the US mortgage market. During the crisis, customers withdrew $ 16.7 billion in deposits, putting a strain on the institution's liquidity. WaMu had to file for bankruptcy and was partially taken over by JP Morgan Chase. In terms of deposit volume, this was the largest bank failure in US history.
Royal Bank of Scotland	United Kingdom United Kingdom	Oct 13, 2008	Banks	Billions in losses due to the international financial crisis and the careless takeover of parts of the ABN AMRO bank in 2008 made government aid for the Royal Bank of Scotland necessary. By 2009, 84% of the company's shares were taken over by the United Kingdom.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC	United States United States	Dec 2008	Investment funds	The American Bernard Madoff operated a mutual fund based on a Ponzi scheme through Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC for several decades . The financial damage caused was at least 50 billion US dollars. In 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his investment fraud.
Sanlu	China People's Republic People's Republic of China	Dec 24, 2008	food	The Chinese dairy manufacturer, 43% of which is owned by Fonterra and the majority held by the Chinese state, went bankrupt in 2008 after six babies died in the wake of the Chinese milk scandal . Along with some other producers of milk powder, Sanlu mixed melamine into its products to artificially simulate a higher protein content. In the case of Sanlu, the effects were particularly severe as the melamine content was higher than other competitors and most of Sanlu's products were intended for infants. Around 300,000 small children became ill through consumption and several infants suffered kidney failure. Several responsible persons were sentenced to death and executed after legal processing.
Nortel	Canada Canada	Jan. 14, 2009	technology	The bankruptcy of the telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nortel was a direct result of a sharp drop in orders from telephone companies due to the financial crisis. The formerly listed company was the first large company outside the financial sector to fall victim to the global crisis from 2007 onwards.
Arcandor	Germany Germany	June 9, 2009	retail trade	In 2009, Arcandor, formerly KarstadtQuelle, opened insolvency proceedings. The conviction of the former Arcandor CEO Thomas Middelhoff for embezzlement and tax evasion caused a particular stir .
Envio recycling	Germany Germany	Oct 2010	Environmental services	Envio Recycling GmbH & Co.KG, a subsidiary of the former Envio AG, went bankrupt in 2010 after the contamination of the factory premises in Dortmund and contamination of the surrounding area by the company with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) became public. Envio recovered copper from large transformers that were filled with PCBs using an approved process . Some of the transformers were brought back to the surface from the Herfa-Neurode repository . Legal proceedings against the managing director and operations manager on suspicion of multiple bodily harm to his own employees and on account of possible violations of environmental regulations had to be discontinued in 2017 due to the lack of evidence.
Harles and Jentzsch	Germany Germany	May 2011	Feed	In 2010 , the manufacturer of feed fats processed fatty acids that were supplied and that were contaminated with dioxins . Harles and Jentzsch were aware of the resulting pollution of the feed fats produced for the production of feed for animal fattening, but the company commissioned Lübbe Transport & Logistik GmbH with the mixing and delivery of the fats. Around 4,700 fattening farms in Germany were affected by closures.
Poly implant prosthesis	France France	2011	Medical devices	The French manufacturer of breast implants supplied defective products that could tear when inserted, causing silicone gel to leak into the body. The company's founder, Jean-Claude Mas, was accused of using low-quality silicone, among other things. Mas was sentenced to four years in prison, a fine of 75,000 euros and a professional ban.
MF Global	United States United States	Nov 2011	Financial service providers	MF Global was a major derivatives broker that was only spun off from Man Group in 2007 and floated on the stock exchange as an independent company. After losing speculation on European government bonds, it became known that the company had embezzled customer funds on a large scale. The damage to customers amounted to around 1.6 billion US dollars. In November 2011, MF Global had to file for bankruptcy.
Schlecker	Germany Germany	Jan. 23, 2012	retail trade	For a long time, the drugstore operator Schlecker was considered the largest company in the industry in terms of the number of shops, but the ratio of sales and profit to total shop space was at the bottom of the competition. After several years of losses in a row, Schlecker ran into a liquidity bottleneck and finally had to file for bankruptcy on January 23, 2012. The daughter Ihr Platz announced its bankruptcy a few days later. After the bankruptcy, proceedings were initiated against several members of the Schlecker family on suspicion of breach of trust, the delay in bankruptcy and bankruptcy.
Müller bread	Germany Germany	Feb 16, 2012	food	Müller-Brot was one of the largest baked goods manufacturers in Europe for several years. Due to ongoing serious hygiene deficiencies in production, the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety has imposed a production stop. Cockroaches, moths and bugs were found in the baking ingredients, among other things. A slump in sales due to the shutdown of production and the migration of major customers and consumers made it necessary to go into bankruptcy.
S&K group	Germany Germany	2013	Financial service providers	The S&K Group acquired residential properties from foreclosures and sold them at a later point in time above the entry value. From 2009 the group of companies collected investments from private individuals through its own closed funds . Investigations from 2013 onwards revealed a pyramid scheme through which investors were paid out. Instead of generated profits, the money for the payouts was raised through the systems of new investors. Overall, there was damage in the three-digit million range.
Mt.Gox	Japan Japan	Feb 28, 2014	Financial service providers	Mt.Gox was a trading platform for bitcoins . In August 2013, around 60% of the global trading volume of the cryptocurrency was processed through Mt.Gox. In February 2014, Mt.Gox KK filed for bankruptcy protection and reported that 750,000 bitcoins from customer deposits and 100,000 bitcoins from the company's assets had been lost. The total loss amounted to over 800 million US dollars. In the following weeks, 200,000 Bitcoins reappeared, but the remaining amount was probably withheld by an insider.
Infinus	Germany Germany	May 2014	Financial service providers	Infinus AG sold mostly worthless profit-sharing rights and bonds on the gray capital market . Distribution was based on a pyramid scheme. In total, the investors suffered damage of over 300 million euros.
Hypo Alpe Adria	Austria Austria	2014	Banks	After a sale to the Bayerische Landesbank in 2007, the bank ran into financial difficulties until 2009 and bankruptcy threatened. At the end of 2009, the group was completely taken over by the state of Austria. In 2014 Hypo Alpe Adria was broken up.
Bankhaus Wölbern & Co.	Germany Germany	Dec 12, 2014	Banks	In the form of commercial infidelity, around 147 million euros from 31 closed-end real estate funds were intentionally used improperly between 2011 and 2013. The investor scandal resulted in the closure of the house.
Imtech	Netherlands Netherlands	Aug 13, 2015	building technology	The German subsidiary of the Dutch company was investigated on suspicion of breach of trust, bribery, price fixing and falsification of accounts. Imtech has been instrumental among other things, the installation of the flues of Berlin Brandenburg Airport involved and should have benefited in many cases the drag from construction activities. Serious construction defects of the airport, mainly in relation to the laying of cable routes and the fire protection system, were accused of the company, which had around 22,200 employees. According to the Handelsblatt , internal investigations uncovered “gang-like structures” in management that would have led to damage amounting to several hundred million euros through corruption and breach of trust.
Unister	Germany Germany	18th July 2016	E-business	The Leipzig web portal operator filed for bankruptcy on July 18, 2016. This happened four days after the mysterious death of the company founder Thomas Wagner . The Free State of Saxony then reclaimed 1.4 million euros, which had been awarded as funding.
Hanjin Shipping	Korea South South Korea	31 Aug 2016	Shipping company	At the time of its bankruptcy, the South Korean ship owner was the seventh largest shipping company in the world based on the available TEU capacity of all ships. After the bankruptcy, 89 of the company's ships that were still at sea were no longer allowed to call at ports, as it was feared that the port dues would not have been paid. At the same time, Hanjin avoided entering in order to prevent the ships from being confiscated by creditors. During this time, the cargo on the ships could not be unloaded and the crew could not be supplied.
P&R group	Germany Germany	2018	Financial service providers	The financial investment company brokered direct investments in sea containers that were leased back by the group of companies. The German companies of the group went bankrupt in spring 2018. The business model has been classified as a pyramid scheme since at least 2007 . Since then, there has also been a growing gap in the actual container inventory. According to media reports, around one million containers that did not exist were sold. There was a financial loss of around 2.5 billion euros.
Theranos	United States United States	Sep 2018	biotechnology	The biotechnology company Theranos claimed to have developed a method with which minute amounts of blood could be examined for pathogens. Contrary to its own statements, the company only rarely used its own analysis devices and examined blood samples that had to be additionally diluted on converted Siemens devices. Company founder Elizabeth Holmes and former board member Ramesh Balwani have been prosecuted for fraud. In a dispute with the SEC , Holmes agreed to pay a fine of $ 500,000. The operational business had to be completely stopped by 2018.
Sears	United States United States	Oct 15, 2018	retail trade	After several years of losses, the number of stationary stores under the Sears name had to be reduced from 4,000 to 510 by 2017, and the number of Kmart stores was reduced from 1,400 to just over 570. In October 2018, Sears Holding Corporation applied for bankruptcy protection.
Pacific Gas and Electric	United States United States	Jan. 14, 2019	Supplier	After the 2001 collapse, PG&E had to file for bankruptcy repeatedly in January 2019. The reason for the renewed bankruptcy were expected claims for damages that resulted from the responsibility for the Camp Fire in California. It was determined that the outdated and ailing transmission infrastructure of PG&E was the cause of the forest fire. The assumed liability amount of around 30 billion US dollars would have exceeded the equity many times over.
Purdue Pharma	United States United States	16 Sep 2019	pharmacy	Before going bankrupt, the US pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma LP was primarily known for its Oxycontin product, an analgesic based on oxycodone . Due to inadequate warnings about the drug's addictiveness, the company was made jointly responsible for the opioid epidemic in the United States of America . Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 16, 2019 due to billions in damages . Purdue Pharma is to be transferred to a public-sector foundation.
Wilke Waldecker meat and sausage products	Germany Germany	4th Oct 2019	Meat products	The sausage producer from Twist valley - Berndorf was prohibited from operating in October 2019 and the products were recalled worldwide after it became clear that the company's sausage contaminated with Listeria had led to several deaths and a total of 37 illnesses. As a result, blatant hygiene deficiencies in production became known. After several lawsuits against the operating ban failed, the company had to file for bankruptcy on October 4, 2019 and was closed in January 2020. At the same time, the public prosecutor's office in Kassel started investigations against those responsible for the company for, among other things, negligent homicide, bodily harm and commercial fraud.
Wirecard	Germany Germany	June 25, 2020	Financial service providers	The DAX group had to admit that reported bank balances at banks in the Philippines amounting to 1.9 billion euros, with great probability, never existed. This sum corresponded to around 25% of the total balance sheet total. As early as the spring of 2019, an author for the Financial Times suggested in several reports that Wirecard employees in Singapore invented sales in order to achieve earnings targets. These allegations were denied by the company. In the meantime, the BaFin has issued a two-month ban on the establishment and expansion of net short positions for Wirecard shares. On June 18, 2020, the auditor, Ernst & Young , announced that he would refuse to approve the 2019 financial statements. Ernst & Young issued an auditor's report for the 2018 annual financial statements without criticizing the lack of balance confirmations for around one billion euros in alleged trust assets. On June 25, Wirecard filed for bankruptcy.
Commercial bank Mattersburg in Burgenland	Austria Austria	July 14, 2020	Banks	In mid-July 2020, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) uncovered extensive falsified accounts at the Burgenland regional bank and ordered the immediate closure. The bank was the main sponsor of the Bundesliga soccer club SV Mattersburg . Martin Pucher , who resigned from his offices in the bank and association when the bank closed, was the chairman of the bank's board of directors and also the president of SV Mattersburg . As a result of the bank's closure, SV Mattersburg also had to file for bankruptcy. Associated with this was the cessation of gaming operations and the withdrawal of the Bundesliga license. The scandal made the bank known nationwide. According to initial information, the balance sheet of the money house had been tweaked by around 500 million euros. Corresponding credit balances of the bank with other Austrian banks did not exist, the related receipts were forged. On July 27, 2020, the FMA applied to open insolvency proceedings.