Doc Rocque

Mr. Bradley

BAF3M

April 12, 2022

Waste management fraud case

Waste Management is a company based of Houston Texas in 1968, it is the leading provider in

environment solutions. Waste Management takes recycling and garbage from customers and

gets rid of it. Manage and reduce waste from collection to disposal while recovering valuable

resources and creating clean, renewable energy. Waste Management has seen and 2.3%

increase in revenue from the yield of the company’s collection and disposal operations.

Revenues increased by 6.1% or 724 million. This company is extremely successful and a good

source of cash, with the free cash being 1.2 billion for 2010. Waste management actively

pursue projects and initiatives that benefit the waste industry, the communities we serve and

the environment.

Crime Scene

Waste Management participated in many fraud accounts, including their profits. They inflated

their profits by 1.7 billion dollars. This made the top employees billions of dollars and

defrauding all of their investors of 6 billion dollars. Thomas C Newkrik, said “For years they

cooked the books, enriched themselves, preserved their jobs, and duped unsuspecting

shareholders.” The executives involved are Dean Buntrock, Phillip B. Rooney, James E. Koenig,

Thomas C. Hau, Bruce D. tobecksen, and Herbert Getz. Buntrock was waste management’s

founder and chairman of the board of directors, and chief executive officer. Rooney was the
chief operating officer, director and CEO. Koenig was the the executive vice president and chief

financial officer. Hau was vice president, corporate controller, and chief accounting officer.

Tobecksen was vice president of finance. Getz was the senior vice president, general counsel,

and secretary.

Evidence

To meet analysts and investor expectations, the company journalized several fraudulent

accounting transactions to eliminate and defer expenses for the current period.  By decreasing

the expenses on the income statement, the company is able to report a higher profit.  To do

this, the company used several fraudulent accounting techniques. They also reported no

depreciation in equipment and had no expenses for new equipment. They failed to record

landfill expenses, established inflated environmental reserves, and fraudulent accounting

reserves.

Conclusion

As a result of the case waste management while they were fined with $31 million, they

were additionally barred from serving any public company as an officer or director.

These were the major impacts of the massive fraud which shook the walls of the

American economy. Company was seriously reprimanded and the officers in charge of

the fraud were suspended, but the company could continue functioning. The US

Congress passed a law-making strict regulation for the disposal of waste in the year

1965. This paved a path for private service for garbage collection and waste

management wherefore many companies ventured into this field, ‘Waste Management’

being one of them.

Work Cited

https://thecompany.ninja/waste-management-scandal/

https://ensscpa.com/waste-management-inc-1998-fraud-scandal/#:~:text=Ultimately%2C

%20the%20company%20had%20false,the%20largest%20restatement%20in%20history.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/complr17435.htm