WThe 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse was a structural failure that occurred on 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building alive. It is considered the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure accident in modern human history and the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history.
WIn 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer.
WOn June 7, 2017, the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) suspended its online transaction and automatic teller machine services amidst reports of money missing from its account holders. There was speculation that BPI was compromised by hackers but the bank claimed that the problem was caused by an internal data processing error. The scope of the issue was nationwide according to the bank and also said that only a small portion of its customers were affected and that most of them were in Metro Manila.
WThe Air Mail scandal, also known as the Air Mail fiasco, is the name that the American press gave to the political scandal resulting from a 1934 congressional investigation of the awarding of contracts to certain airlines to carry airmail and to the use of the U.S. Army Air Corps to fly the mail.
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 Armley asbestos disaster is an ongoing health issue originating in Armley, a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Described by Dr. Geoffrey Tweedale as a "social disaster", it involved the contamination with asbestos dust of an area consisting of around 1,000 houses in the Armley Lodge area of the city.
WThe Banca Romana scandal surfaced in January 1893 in Italy over the bankruptcy of the Banca Romana, one of the six national banks authorised at the time to issue currency. The scandal was the first of many Italian corruption scandals, and discredited both ministers and parliamentarians, in particular those of the Historical Left and was comparable to the Panama Canal Scandal that was shaking France at the time, threatening the constitutional order. The crisis prompted a new banking law, tarnished the prestige of the Prime Ministers Francesco Crispi and Giovanni Giolitti and prompted the collapse of the latter's government in November 1893.
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 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, Baring's 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.
WThe Brumadinho dam disaster occurred on 25 January 2019 when Dam I, a tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) east of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, suffered a catastrophic failure. The dam is owned by Vale, the same company that was involved in the 2015 Mariana dam disaster. The dam released a mudflow that advanced through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime, along with houses, farms, inns, and roads downstream. 270 people died as a result of the collapse, of whom 259 were officially confirmed dead, in January 2019, and 11 others reported as missing, whose bodies had not been found.
WThe capacitor plague was a problem related to a higher-than-expected failure rate of non-solid aluminium electrolytic capacitors, between 1999 and 2007, especially those from some Taiwanese manufacturers, due to faulty electrolyte composition that caused corrosion accompanied by gas generation, often rupturing the case of the capacitor from the build-up of pressure.
WOn 13 January 2012, the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground, capsized, and later sank in shallow waters after striking an underwater rock off Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, resulting in 32 deaths. The eight-year-old Costa Cruises vessel was on the first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when she deviated from her planned route at Isola del Giglio, sailed closer to the island, and struck a rock formation on the sea floor. Although a six-hour rescue effort brought most of the passengers ashore, 33 people died - 27 passengers, five crew, and later, one member of the salvage-team.
WThe Danske Bank money laundering scandal arose in 2017-2018, when it became known that around €200 billion of suspicious transactions had flowed from Estonian, Russian, Latvian and other sources through the Estonia-based bank branch of Denmark-based Danske Bank from 2007 to 2015. It has been described as possibly the largest money laundering scandal ever in Europe, and as possibly the largest in world history. It includes incoming funds from Estonia (23%), Russia (23%), Latvia (12%), Cyprus (9%), UK (4%) and others. Outgoing funds were distributed between Estonia (15%), Latvia (14%), China (7%), Switzerland (6%), Turkey (6%) and others (52%)
WIn 2014 onwards, software which manipulated air pollution tests was discovered in vehicles from some car makers; the software recognized when the standardized emissions test was being done, and adjusted the engine to emit less during the test. The cars emitted much higher levels of pollution under real-world driving conditions. Some cars emissions were higher even though there was no manipulated software.
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.
WIn the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising.
WFyre Festival was a failed luxury music festival founded by Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre Media Inc, and rapper Ja Rule. It was created with the intent of promoting the company's Fyre app for booking music talent. The festival was scheduled to take place on April 28–30 and May 5–7, 2017, on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma.
WThe Great Phenol Plot was a clandestine effort by the German Government during the early years of World War I to divert American-produced phenol away from the manufacture of high explosives that supported the British war effort. It was used by the German-owned Bayer company, who could no longer import phenol from Britain, to produce aspirin.
WOn September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that Hewlett-Packard's general counsel, at the behest of HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, had contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists in order to identify the source of an information leak. In turn, those security experts recruited private investigators who used a spying technique known as pretexting. The pretexting involved investigators impersonating HP board members and nine journalists in order to obtain their phone records. The information leaked related to HP's long-term strategy and was published as part of a CNET article in January 2006. HP hired public relations firm Sitrick and Company to manage their media relations during the crisis.
WOn July 17, 1981, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, suffered the structural collapse of two overhead walkways. Loaded with partygoers, the concrete and glass platforms cascaded down, crashing onto a tea dance in the lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. Kansas City society was affected for years, with the collapse resulting in billions of dollars of insurance claims, legal investigations and city government reforms.
WThe 2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach was a cyberattack against American bank JPMorgan Chase that is believed to have compromised data associated with over 83 million accounts—76 million households and 7 million small businesses. The data breach is considered one of the most serious intrusions into an American corporation's information system and one of the largest data breaches in history.
WLerner Newspapers was a chain of weekly newspapers. Founded by Leo Lerner, the chain was a force in community journalism in Chicago from 1926 to 2005, and called itself "the world's largest newspaper group".
WThe Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed a series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft.
WThe Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former NASDAQ chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
WTunku Abdul Majid Idris ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Al-Haj is a member of the hereditary nobility in Malaysia as the prince of Johor. Tunku Majid has served in honorary positions in national sports associations including as President of the Malaysian Golf Association and as Deputy President of the Malaysian Hockey Confederation. An incident in 1992 in which Tunku Majid was alleged to have assaulted a hockey coach led to the ending of legal immunity for Malaysia's nobility.
WMattel, Inc. is an American multinational toy manufacturing company founded in 1945 with headquarters in El Segundo, California. The products and brands it produces include Fisher-Price, Barbie, Monster High, Ever After High, Polly Pocket, Enchantimals, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Masters of the Universe, American Girl, and Thomas & Friends. In the early 1980s, Mattel produced video game systems, under its own brands and under license from Nintendo. The company has presence in 40 countries and territories and sells products in more than 150 countries. The company operates through three business segments: North America, international, and American Girl. It is the world's second largest toy maker in terms of revenue, after The Lego Group. In 2019, it ranked #575 on the Fortune 500 list. On January 17, 2017, Mattel named former Google executive Margo Georgiadis as CEO. Georgiadis stepped down as CEO of Mattel on April 19, 2018. Her last day was on April 26, 2018. Ynon Kreiz is now the new CEO of Mattel.
WMedia Vision was an American electronics manufacturer of primarily computer sound cards and CD-ROM kits, operating from 1990 to approximately 1995 in Fremont, California. Media Vision was widely known for its Pro AudioSpectrum PC sound cards—which it often bundled with CD-ROM drives—and its spectacular growth and demise.
WOne.Tel was a group of Australian-based telecommunications companies, principally the publicly-listed One.Tel Limited, established in 1995 soon after deregulation of the Australian telecommunications industry, most of which are currently under external administration by court appointed liquidators.
WOverseas Trust Bank Limited (OTB) was a bank in Hong Kong. It was established in 1955 by Chang Ming Thien, a Malaysian businessman and it was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. It was the fourth largest bank in Hong Kong before acquisition.
WThe patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries refers to allegations that corporate interests have used the patent system to prevent the commercialization of nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery technology. Nickel metal hydride battery technology was considered important to the development of battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) before the technology for lithium-ion battery packs became a viable replacement.
WPepsi Number Fever, also known as the 349 incident, was a promotion held by PepsiCo in the Philippines in 1992, which led to riots and the deaths of at least five people.
WThe Pizarreño asbestos disaster is an ongoing health disaster in Chile. Despite the company Pizarreño ceasing to use asbestos in 1998 and the prohibition of asbestos in 2001 its effects continue to be felt.
WBetween 1947 and 1977, General Electric polluted the Hudson River by discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), causing a range of harmful effects to wildlife and people who eat fish from the river or drink the water. Other kinds of pollution, including mercury contamination and cities discharging untreated sewage, have also caused problems in the river.
WRefco was a New York-based financial services company, primarily known as a broker of commodities and futures contracts. It was founded in 1969 by Raymond Earl Friedman as Ray E. Friedman and Co. Prior to its collapse in October, 2005, the firm had over $4 billion in approximately 200,000 customer accounts, and it was the largest broker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The firm's balance sheet at the time of the collapse showed about $75 billion in assets and a roughly equal amount in liabilities. Though these filings have since been disowned by the company, they are probably roughly accurate in showing the firm's level of leverage.
WThe Sampoong Department Store collapse was a structural failure that occurred on June 29, 1995, in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea. The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history, killing 502 people and injuring 937. It was the deadliest modern building collapse until the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the deadliest non-deliberate building collapse until the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse near Dhaka, Bangladesh.
WThe Saradha Group financial scandal was a major financial scam and alleged political scandal caused by the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by Saradha Group, a consortium of over 200 private companies that was believed to be running collective investment schemes popularly but incorrectly referred to as chit funds in Eastern India.
WScotiaMocatta, originally founded as Mocatta Bullion in 1684, was a precious metal and base metal trading company that operated as the metals trading division of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) from 1997 until January 2019.
WThe sinking of MV Sewol, also called the Sewol ferry disaster, occurred on the morning of 16 April 2014, when the ferry MV Sewol was en route from Incheon towards Jeju in South Korea. The 6,825-ton vessel sent a distress signal from about 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) north of Byeongpungdo at 08:58 KST. Out of 476 passengers and crew, 304 died in the disaster, including around 250 students from Danwon High School. Of the approximately 172 survivors, more than half were rescued by fishing boats and other commercial vessels that arrived at the scene approximately forty minutes before the Korea Coast Guard (KCG).
WA scandal erupted in 2005 regarding Sony BMG's implementation of copy protection measures on about 22 million CDs. When inserted into a computer, the CDs installed one of two pieces of software that provided a form of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to interfere with CD copying. Neither program could easily be uninstalled, and they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. One of the programs would install and "phone home" with reports on the user's private listening habits - even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits.
WThe Sumitomo copper affair refers to a metal trading scandal in 1996 involving Yasuo Hamanaka, the chief copper trader of the Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation (Sumitomo). The scandal involves unauthorized trading over a 10-year period by Hamanaka, which led Sumitomo to announce $1.8 billion USD in related losses in 1996 when Hamanaka's trading was discovered, and more related losses subsequently. The scandal also involved Hamanaka's attempts to corner the entire world's copper market through LME Copper futures contracts on the London Metal Exchange (LME).
WThe Terra Securities scandal was a scandal that became public in November 2007. It involved highly speculative investments by eight municipalities of Norway in various hedge funds in the United States bond market. The funds were sold by Terra Securities to the municipalities, while the products were delivered by Citigroup. The municipalities involved were Narvik, Rana, Hattfjelldal and Hemnes in Nordland, Vik and Bremanger in Sogn og Fjordane, Haugesund in Rogaland, and Kvinesdal in Vest-Agder, all large producers of hydroelectricity.
WThe Volkswagen emissions scandal, sometimes known as Dieselgate or Emissionsgate, began in September 2015, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group. The agency had found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing, which caused the vehicles' NO x output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, while they emitted up to 40 times more NO x in real-world driving. Volkswagen deployed this software in about 11 million cars worldwide, including 500,000 in the United States, in model years 2009 through 2015.
WThe Wells Fargo account fraud scandal is a controversy brought about by the creation of millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on behalf of Wells Fargo clients without their consent. News of the fraud became widely known in late 2016 after various regulatory bodies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), fined the company a combined US$185 million as a result of the illegal activity. The company faces additional civil and criminal suits reaching an estimated $2.7 billion by the end of 2018. The creation of these fake accounts continues to have legal and financial ramifications for Wells Fargo and former bank executives as of early 2021.
WWest Grand Bahama is one of 31 districts of The Bahamas. The district covers the entire western portion of Grand Bahama island, excluding the city of Freeport, which forms its own district. Communities within West Grand Bahama include the settlements of Mack Town, Hunters, Lewis Yard, Pinder's Point, Eight Mile Rock, Hepburn Town, Bartlett Hill, Hanna Hill, Pine Dale, Martin Town, Russell Town, Jones Town, Sea Grape, Holmes Rock, Bootle Bay and the westernmost settlement of West End.
WMark Edward Whitacre is an American business executive who came to public attention in 1995 when, as president of the Decatur, Illinois-based BioProducts Division at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), he became the highest-level corporate executive in U.S. history to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whistleblower. For three years (1992–95), Whitacre acted as a cooperating witness for the FBI, which was investigating ADM for price fixing. In the late 1990s Whitacre was sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for embezzling $9.5 million from ADM at the same time he was assisting the federal price-fixing investigation.
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.