WIn 2014, $1 billion disappeared from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială. The bank fraud in Moldova was a coordinated effort involving all three banks working together to extract as much loan finance as possible from the banks without any obvious business rationale. Ilan Shor, a Moldovan businessman, "masterminded" the scam. Shor was chairman of the board at Banca de Economii up to November 28, 2014.
WAl Yamamah is the name of a series of record arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, paid for by the delivery of up to 600,000 barrels (95,000 m3) of crude oil per day to the British government. The prime contractor has been BAE Systems and its predecessor British Aerospace. The first sales occurred in September 1985 and the most recent contract for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters was signed in August 2006.
WThe Canadian Automobile Association is a federation of eight regional not-for-profit automobile associations in Canada, founded in 1913. The constituent associations are responsible for providing roadside assistance, auto touring and leisure travel services, insurance services, and member discount programs within their service territories. The CAA National Office in Ottawa coordinates relations between the clubs, oversees joint initiatives, and lobbies the federal government. In 2020 and 2021, the Gustavson Brand Trust Index named CAA the most trusted brand in Canada.
WThe Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy began in Dublin in December 2008 when Seán FitzPatrick, the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank, admitted he had hidden a total of €87 million in loans from the bank, triggering a series of incidents which led to the eventual nationalisation of Anglo on 21 January 2009. FitzPatrick subsequently resigned his position and was followed within twenty-four hours by the bank's non-executive director, Lar Bradshaw and chief executive, David Drumm. A new chairman of Anglo, Donal O'Connor, was quickly appointed from the board, a move welcomed by the Irish Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan. A number of investigations have been launched into the reasons behind the three resignations. The Central Bank of Ireland is carrying out a review of the bank's dealings, although its Financial Regulator, Patrick Neary, has also since resigned his position. So too did a number of other chairmen, directors and executives involved with Anglo, Irish Life and Permanent and Irish Nationwide.
WBanco Español de Crédito, S.A., “Spanish Credit Bank”) better known as Banesto, was a Spanish multinational financial services company. Prior to the Spanish Government's historical intervention in 1993, the very first in the history of banking, Banesto was the third-largest financial group in Spain, operating around 1,770 branches, as well as the fifth-largest company of the IBEX 35. The ambitious capital increase planned in 1993 by its Executive Chairman Mario Conde together with J.P. Morgan's vice-president Roberto Mendoza became the biggest restructuring plan in the history of Europe, involving asset sales and a rights issue of US$1.2 billion, after which Banesto was expected to become the largest financial firm in Europe. Although initially accepted by the Bank of Spain, it was later frustrated following intervention on the basis of financial transparency.
WThe Bangladesh Bank robbery, also known colloquially as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist, was a theft that took place in February 2016. Thirty-five fraudulent instructions were issued by security hackers via the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. Five of the thirty-five fraudulent instructions were successful in transferring US$101 million, with US$20 million traced to Sri Lanka and US$81 million to the Philippines. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to US$850 million, due to suspicions raised by a misspelled instruction. All the money transferred to Sri Lanka has since been recovered. However, as of 2018 only around US$18 million of the US$81 million transferred to the Philippines has been recovered. Most of the money transferred to the Philippines went to four personal accounts, held by single individuals, and not to companies or corporations.
WThe Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The bank was registered in Luxembourg with head offices in Karachi and London. A decade after opening, BCCI had over 400 branches in 78 countries and assets in excess of US$20 billion, making it the seventh largest private bank in the world.
WBarings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German-British Baring family of merchants and bankers.
WRoberto Calvi was an Italian banker, dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close association with the Holy See. He was a native of Milan and was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of Italy's biggest political scandals.
WDaewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd is one of the "Big Three" shipbuilders of South Korea, along with Hyundai and Samsung.
WDumbell's Bank was a bank in the Isle of Man. The bank's insolvency in 1900, known as Black Saturday and referred to in the Isle of Man as the Dumbell's Bank Crash, resulted in a run on the bank with many individuals losing their life savings and the ruin of numerous local businesses causing poverty, depression and bankruptcy. The effects were profound and lasted for a considerable number of years.
WThe Enron scandal was an accounting scandal involving Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Upon being publicized in October 2001, the company declared bankruptcy and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen – then one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world – was effectively dissolved. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in U.S. history at that time, Enron was cited as the biggest audit failure.
WHP Autonomy, previously Autonomy Corporation PLC, was an enterprise software company which was merged with Micro Focus in 2017. It was founded in Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1996.
WMCI, Inc. was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunications companies, including MCI Communications in 1998, and filed bankruptcy in 2002 after an accounting scandal, in which several executives, including CEO Bernard Ebbers, were convicted of a scheme to inflate the company's assets. In January 2006, the company, by then renamed MCI, was acquired by Verizon Communications and was later integrated into Verizon Business.
WObsidian Energy Ltd. is a mid-sized Canadian oil and natural gas production company based in Calgary, Alberta.
WThe Ricoh Company, Ltd. is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the Riken Concern, on 6 February 1936 as Riken Sensitized Paper . Ricoh's headquarters are located in Ota, Tokyo.
WSymbol Technologies is an American manufacturer and supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specializes in barcode scanners, mobile computers, RFID systems and Wireless LAN infrastructure. In 2014, Symbol Technologies became a subsidiary of Zebra Technologies, and is headquartered in Holtsville, New York, on Long Island.
WTaylor, Bean & Whitaker was a top-10 wholesale mortgage lending firm in the United States, the fifth-largest issuer of Government National Mortgage Association securities. Their slogan was "Perfecting the Art of Mortgage Lending".
WTesco plc is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in the world measured by revenues. It has shops in five countries across Europe, and is the market leader of groceries in the UK.
WToshiba Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives (HDD), printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography. It was one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment. As a semiconductor company and the inventor of flash memory, Toshiba had been one of the top 10 in the chip industry until its flash memory unit was spun off as Toshiba Memory, later Kioxia, in the late 2010s.
WWaste Management, Inc. is an American waste management, comprehensive waste, and environmental services company in North America. Founded in 1968, the company is headquartered in the First City Tower in Houston, Texas.
WThe Wirecard scandal is a series of accounting scandals that resulted in the insolvency of Wirecard, a German payment processor and financial services provider that was part of the DAX index. Wirecard AG is a payment processor headquartered in Munich, Germany. The company offers its customers electronic payment transaction services and risk management, as well as the issuing and processing of physical cards. The subsidiary Wirecard Bank AG holds a banking licence and holds contracts with multiple international financial services companies.