Excerpted from various pages on AOL News. Some of these incidents are more famous than others:
National Semiconductor
In June, National Semiconductor boosts morale by handing every employee a 30-gigabyte iPod, for which it makes computer chips. In July, National laid off 35 employees - and demanded their iPods back, claiming that the portable music players are company "equipment."
Bank of America
After Bank of America announces plans to outsource 100 tech support jobs from the San Francisco Bay Area to India, the American workers are told that they must train their own replacements in order to receive their severance payments.
Alarm One
A jury in Fresno, Calif., awards $1.7 million in damages to Janet Orlando, who quit her job with home security company Alarm One after team-building exercises during which she and her colleagues were forced to eat baby food, wear diapers, or submit to being spanked on the butt with a rival company's yard signs.
Radio Shack
In August, RadioShack fires 400 staffers via e-mail. Affected employees receive a message that reads, "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."
Mayor of New Lenox, Ill.
Mike Smith, mayor of New Lenox, Ill., pays a $1,462 tab at a strip club with his official village credit card.
By way of explanation, he says none of the other attendees had the means to pay the bill.
Northwest Airlines
In July, bankrupt Northwest Airlines begins laying off thousands of ground workers, but not before issuing some of them a handy guide, "101 Ways to Save Money." The advice includes dumpster diving ("Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash"), making your own baby food, shredding old newspapers for use as cat litter, and taking walks in the woods as a low-cost dating alternative.
United Health Group CEO
In the midst of corporate America's scandal du jour - the backdating of stock options to enrich company executives - the Wall Street Journal discovers that William McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, received options on dates coinciding with the company's lowest share prices of 1997, 1999, and 2000. After a company inquiry finds backdating to have been "likely" (the odds of this happening by chance are around 1 in 200 million), McGuire steps down and agrees to give up about $200 million in proceeds.
Comverse Technology Executives
In an effort to top UnitedHealth in the annals of backdating, executives at Comverse Technology are alleged not only to have backdated their own options but to have invented fake employees to receive grants as well. In a 35-count federal indictment, prosecutors claim that CEO Jacob Alexander used a slush fund under the name I.M. Fanton to make awards as he saw fit. Alexander flees the country but is taken into custody in Namibia after a six-week international manhunt.
Cablevision Awards Working Stiff
Not to be outdone by UnitedHealth and Comverse, cable-TV operator Cablevision Systems admits in a regulatory filing that it granted stock options to a corpse. The company awarded the rights to purchase thousands of shares to former vice chairman Marc Lustgarten, despite the fact that he died in 1999; the options included provisions that allowed them to pass to his estate.
Oracle CEO
In June, Harvard University scraps plans for the Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) Institute for World Health after Oracle CEO Larry Ellison reneges on a $115 million donation promised to the school 10 months earlier. Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne says Ellison decided to withdraw his pledge as the result of the resignation of Harvard president Lawrence Summers, but he vows that Ellison will announce plans for a donation to another organization within a few weeks. Ellison has yet to announce such plans.
B2/Raytheon CEO
In April, just nine months after a Business 2.0 cover story trumpets the wisdom of Raytheon CEO William Swanson and his folksy hit book, Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, a San Diego engineer makes a shocking discovery: 17 of Swanson's 33 rules are similar - and in some cases identical - to those in The Unwritten Rules of Engineering, a 1944 text by UCLA professor W.J. King. While conceding that he failed to give proper credit, Swanson insists he didn't intend to plagiarize, suggesting that old photocopied material may have wound up in his "scraps." By way of punishment, Raytheon's board freezes Swanson's salary at its 2005 level of $1.1 million and cuts his restricted stock grant by 20 percent.
Hyundai-Kia Motors Chairman
In April, while under investigation for allegedly establishing a slush fund to bribe public officials, Chung Mong-Koo, chairman of South Korea's Hyundai-Kia Motor Group, says "I am sorry" more than 30 times during a brief encounter with reporters. To make amends, Chung and son Chung Eui-Sun, president of Kia Motors, offer to donate $1 billion to charity. Spirit of giving notwithstanding, Chung Mong-Koo is jailed for two months and tried on charges of misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars.
Lone Star
In the wake of the Hyundai scandal, Dallas-based private equity fund Lone Star finds itself under investigation for various financial shenanigans relating to its 2003 takeover of Korea Exchange Bank. Though Lone Star denies any wrongdoing, it nonetheless offers a public apology and announces that it will donate $100 million to charity. The mea culpa fails to impress KEB employees, who hijack Lone Star's apologetic/philanthropic press conference with a chant that translates to "Let's destroy foreign vulture funds." In November, Lone Star backs away from a deal to sell its KEB stake for a $4.5 billion profit, citing the ongoing investigation.
Home Depot Chairman
Dodging investors angry over the pay received by Home Depot chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli, who took home at least $120 million over five years as the company's stock price dropped 12 percent, Home Depot's board fails to show up at its annual shareholders meeting. The session is presided over solely by Nardelli, who sidesteps all questions ("This is not the forum in which we would address your comment") and cuts the meeting short after half an hour. The event's negative fallout, highlighted by demonstrators wearing chicken costumes and orange Home Depot aprons, leads Nardelli to announce days later that, for next year's meeting, "we will return to our traditional format ... with the board of directors in attendance." Nardelli resigns in early January, walking away with another $210 million in severance.
Time Warner CFO
A woman whom New York police allege works as a madam says Time Warner chief financial officer Wayne Pace was her "sugar daddy," offering her clothes, cash, and other gifts and helping her buy a $500,000 Manhattan apartment. Andreia Schwartz makes the claims in a jailhouse interview with the New York Post in which she also denies being a madam or accepting money from Pace in exchange for sex. Pace has his lawyer acknowledge that he and Schwartz were friends but denies any sort of "inappropriate relationship."
Hewlett-Packard
Concerned about boardroom leaks, Hewlett-Packard starts an investigation that spins out of control, with private eyes obtaining the personal phone records of board members under false pretenses and inspecting journalists' trash in an attempt to discover the source of the leaks. The tactics ultimately lead to state and federal investigations, the grilling of top HP brass by a congressional committee, and the resignation of several top executives, including chairman Patricia Dunn, who pleads not guilty to California charges of felony fraud and identity theft.
Gizmondo CEO
After leading videogame-console startup Gizmondo to nearly $400 million in losses and a bankruptcy filing, edgy entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson wrecks his $1 million Ferrari Enzo in a crash in Malibu in February. Eriksson tests above the blood-alcohol limit but tells police that he wasn't driving, and that the driver, "Dietrich," ran into the hills after the crash. It's soon discovered that Eriksson's wrecked Enzo is actually owned by a British bank, and two more cars he claims to own, another Enzo and a Mercedes McLaren, have been reported stolen in England. Eriksson pleads no contest to embezzlement and drunk driving charges and is sentenced to three years in jail.
