Stanford financial group case
MGT 3211
Section 1 March 12, 2014
The Ponzi Scheme Fraud from Stanford Financial Group
Upon finding a discussion for a posing ethical dilemma in business today, I came across a recent development to an ongoing issue in both national and fairly local news. The Stanford Financial Group, which is an expanded financial firm based nearby in Houston, has been under investigation for “a massive ongoing fraud” using a Ponzi scheme in which investors are paid back their own money or some money from another investor. The reason this topic interests me is that the company seems to be having trouble deciphering where to place blame and no one under indictment wanted to accept any responsibility. Secondly, argument continues as to the mis-handling of The Securities and Exchange commission, charged with oversight of all investment practices. The other main issue is on how to compensate the thousands of people who have been wronged by the company’s sabotage. After several court appeal and as new evidence surfaced, the main perpetrators were eventually brought to justice. While this was an important act to accomplish, many victims and financial analysts say the focus has been skewed all along and that is time to stop playing blame-games and start fixing the problem, and I agree. The key player in this whole scam is Texas financier Allen Stanford who concealed the theft of billions of dollars from investors at his offshore bank. He told CD buyers their money was invested in conservative liquid assets and were cared by international money managers that proved recently to be non-existant. While Stanford admits to being careless with his company’s policies, he claims that there are other parties involved that should be taken into consideration. Laura Pendergest-Holt was also tried as the chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group. She is the global controller for the company and played a vital role into allocating the fraudulent
Section 1 March 12, 2014
The Ponzi Scheme Fraud from Stanford Financial Group
Upon finding a discussion for a posing ethical dilemma in business today, I came across a recent development to an ongoing issue in both national and fairly local news. The Stanford Financial Group, which is an expanded financial firm based nearby in Houston, has been under investigation for “a massive ongoing fraud” using a Ponzi scheme in which investors are paid back their own money or some money from another investor. The reason this topic interests me is that the company seems to be having trouble deciphering where to place blame and no one under indictment wanted to accept any responsibility. Secondly, argument continues as to the mis-handling of The Securities and Exchange commission, charged with oversight of all investment practices. The other main issue is on how to compensate the thousands of people who have been wronged by the company’s sabotage. After several court appeal and as new evidence surfaced, the main perpetrators were eventually brought to justice. While this was an important act to accomplish, many victims and financial analysts say the focus has been skewed all along and that is time to stop playing blame-games and start fixing the problem, and I agree. The key player in this whole scam is Texas financier Allen Stanford who concealed the theft of billions of dollars from investors at his offshore bank. He told CD buyers their money was invested in conservative liquid assets and were cared by international money managers that proved recently to be non-existant. While Stanford admits to being careless with his company’s policies, he claims that there are other parties involved that should be taken into consideration. Laura Pendergest-Holt was also tried as the chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group. She is the global controller for the company and played a vital role into allocating the fraudulent