A company that looked like America's most innovative firm was hiding billions in debt
Enron was named 'America's Most Innovative Company' by Fortune magazine six years running, while executives used off-the-books partnerships to hide mounting losses and inflate reported profits. When the scheme unravelled in late 2001, Enron collapsed into what was then the largest bankruptcy in US history, took down its auditor Arthur Andersen, and prompted Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act overhauling corporate accounting rules.