Kmart's Bankruptcy

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This paper will present the background of the company, the situation that lead to the filing of the bankruptcy by the company, the details of the fraud. Also discussed are the ethical and GAAP’s violations happened in the case (Graff, 2006). The K-Mart scandal was an accounting scandal happened in the popular K-Mart firm. Kmart in the early 2000’s has done shelf locking prices from the suppliers and the amount collected in few millions of dollars is projected through accounting fraud as revenue. This inflation in the revenue is not actually the profits by the company but mere fraud that showed the sums collected as inflation in the revenues. The inflation in the revenues is projected to market the share prices of the company and planned to…show more content…
In 2014 the company is operating with a total of more than 1000 stores throughout the world. Kmart also extended to Australia and New Zealand. (Hammind, 1994) The Nature of the Fraud The recorded increase in the revenues of Kmart were not real revenues, they were the fees paid by K-Mart vendors to the company, for securing the shelf space. These fees that are paid by vendors of K-Mart are subjected to the payback clause and they should be amortized once the life of the contract is over. The incorrect recording of the revenue resulted in an increase in the company’s revenues as high as 10%. The accountants involved in the process have a rationalization for booking the collections from the suppliers as revenue. This rationalization of the accountants is the cause of the scandal initiation. The sole rationalization of projecting the rise in the stock prices was to pseudo inflation of the revenues in order to give investors the impression that the company is making good profits. (Sellers, 1996) GAAPs…show more content…
Hence the point of materiality principle is affected it should not be treated in the same manner as material transactions. This principle is violated in the present scenario of falsification of the facts in the accounts. Ethical violations There are a number of ethical violations performed by K-Mart during this time. There were huge bonuses given to the key managers of the company for retention with very high severance packages, while thousands of workers were laid off in the company. The peak of its ethical violation is the provision of golden parachute to CEO Chuck Conway worth more than nine and half million dollars and with a severance package of three times his basic salary, as well as forgiveness of $5 million loan. This happened just before the company filed for bankruptcy. Of course the unethical and wrongly reporting of the vendor allowances or slotting fees as classified revenues subsequently results in a big accounting scandal for K-Mart. There are also concerns regarding the Kmart donations to the political parties in hopes of escaping from scrutiny is itself a big issue of ethical disorder. It is pointed out in reports that K-Mart has paid about $136,000 and $244,942 to the Democrats and Republicans for escaping from the scrutiny (Stevens,
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