麻豆社

The year 2002 will be remembered as a year of scandals at the heart of corporate America, with the collapse of energy trader, Enron, telecoms giant, Worldcom and global accountants, Andersen. A new board was set up to try to address rigged accounts, but the remaining big global accountancy firms managed to block a plan to put an investor representative in charge. The clean up was further hampered when US Securities regulator, Harvey Pitt, was forced to resign after months of criticism. In Africa, the plight of Zambia was complicated by America supplying food aid in the form of genetically modified maize that was turned away. The changeover to the Euro as the currency uniting 300 million people in 12 European countries went far more smoothly than most had predicted.

(Picture: Enron's Vice President of corporate development Sherron Watkins (left) watches as former President and CEO of Enron Corporation Jeffrey Skilling (right) testifies before the Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation in February 2002. Credit: Getty Images)