http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/SEC-Sues-Waste-Management26mar02.htm
The largest citing fraud was the Waste Management scandal of 1999. This lawsuit was filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) claiming from 1992 to 1997 that six executives from Waste Management "cooked the books." Cooking the books refers to manipulating pension plans, inflating revenues, and delaying expenses. Founder and former Chief Executive Dean Buntrock, former President and Chief Operating Officer Phillip Rooney,
former Chief Financial Officer James Koenig; Thomas Hau, the former controller;
Herbert Getz, the former general counsel; and Bruce Tobecksen, former vice
president of finance were named in this lawsuit brought by the SEC.
Waste Management paid $457 million on a shareholder class action lawsuit, consisting of 30 individual lawsuits, for securities law violations. Moreover, Waste Management received $20 million from their auditor Arthur Andersen, who is under investigation. Furthermore the relationship between Waste Management and Arthur Andersen was severed due to Mr. Andersen fine of $7 million, the largest amount paid by a Big Five Accounting firm.
