The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "SEC filings" ...
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Revolving Regulators
The Project on Government Oversight filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all post-employment statements filed by former SEC employees and analyzed the statements and other documents.
Tags: SEC; employment; FOIA
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The Tyranny of Oil
"The hardest-hitting expose of the oil industry in decades answers today's most pressing energy questions: How much oil is left? How far will Big Oil go to get it? And at what cost to the economy, environment, human rights, worker safety, public health, democracy, and America's place in the world?"
Tags: oil; america; human rights; environment; health; gas; petroleum; Standard Oil; SEC tax filings; oil futures
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The Federal Contractor Misconduct Database
The Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD) is a Web-based resource that tracks the civil, criminal, and administrative misconduct of the federal government's largest suppliers of goods and services. POGO created the FCMD to ensure that the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars the federal government awards every year in contracts (over $530 billion in fiscal year 2008) go to companies with solid records of responsibility, integrity and performance. POGO developed the FCMD because government contracting officers are required by law to award contracts to responsible vendors only but lack a centralized repository of information on vendors' misconduct histories. To make decisions that are in the best interest of the public and prevent fraud, wasted and abuse, the government must have as much information as possible reflecting the past performance and responsibility of prospective vendors. The FCMD provides this information free to the public in a concise and user-friendly format. The FCMD spotlights each of the top 100 federal contractors. It complies each contractor's instances of misconduct -- actual and alleged -- dating back to 1995. In addition to misconduct instances, the FCMD includes primary source documents and links to the contractors' Web sites, annual reports, SEC filings, and lobbying and campaign finance information. Search and sort features allow users to search the data for key words, or to organize the data in interesting ways. The FCMD is an evolving resource. POGO continually adds and updates instances and contractor information. POGO also periodically updates the contractor list to reflect the most current fiscal year ranking. Each year, the roster of contractors will change, but POGO will keep all old rankings on a special archive page so that eventually the FCMD will include hundreds of contractors.
Tags: government contracts; computer-assisted reporting; database work; government oversight; misconduct
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Assignment Peru: Poison in La Oroya
American mining company Doe Run bought a metalurgical plant in La Oroya, Peru, promising to clean it up after tests showed 99 percent of children born after the take-over had incredibly high level of lead contamination. Ten years later, the company has asked for extensions on the deadlines.
Tags: lead poisoning; air pollution; Doe Run; Hunter Farrell; SEC filings; La Oroya; Peru;
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State Oversight Lax for Vocational Schools
Students who signed up for vocational schools seeking training in computers, health care and cosmetology among other fields of study, have filed 1,177 complaints to California's Bureau for Postsecondary and Vocational Education in the past two years. Bureau administrators admitted to being passive regarding student complaints which were most often about school fraud, false advertising and failure to make refunds. Schools failed, with impugnity, to report satisfactory graduation and job-placement records as required by law. And recently the SEC has opened an investigation of one company, ITT Educational Services, for possible falsified attendance records, grades and job-placement statistics, none of which was caught by California's bureau.
Tags: Vocational training; computer schools; medical care; lack of governmental oversight; cosmetology schools; class action lawsuits
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Wring Out The Old
Never say never in the telecommunications industry. This is precisely what the young heads of QWest learnt after their manic adrenaline rush while writing off old-school US West employees and boasting of new rapid business models. Westword analyzes the full circle that QWest have come after nearly bullying over telephone company US West and firing their employees. Riding high on the stock wave soon after they took off, the new-age telecom player (QWest) were eaten up by the dotcom bust in the late '90's. Currently they face allegations of all sorts- from SEC filings to unfair pensioners policies and biased executive compensation packages.
Tags: QWest; Aeillo; US West; telecommunications; Nacchio
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Fraud Outruns the Feds: Investors lose almost $1 billion in five years
According to the authors, "Federal watchdogs have been largely ineffective in combating securities fraud and helping victims recover their money. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's investigation of all 121 cases filed in the Southeastern U.S. by the Securities and Exchange Commission's Miami office during the past five years also found that 25 percent of violators had been the subject of at least one previous regulatory or criminal action involving fraud or economic crime; only 20 percent of the agency's cases against violators resulted in criminal prosecutions; and SEC violations resulted in $176 million in fines and penalties being levied, although only about $6.5 million has been collected. Investors losses in these securities fraud cases totalled at least $938 million."
Tags: fraud; Florida; criminal; prosecutions; SEC; Securities and Exchange Commission; money; fines; penalties; federal; Miami
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Edison Schools: An Education in Financial Deception
A Bloomberg News investigation shows how Edison Schools Inc. -- "the largest private manager of public schools in the U.S. -- artificially inflated its annual revenue by 41 percent in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission." Other findings are that Edison booked revenue from the Sherman, Texas, school district, and that budget problems prevented the company from providing textbooks for schools in Pennsylvania.
Tags: finances; overspending; SEC; accounting standards; privatization of education; stocks and bonds; business
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The Sham of Enron: How the Deception of Shareholders, Analysts and Employees Paved the Way for the Biggest U.S. Bankruptcy
Bloomberg reports on the collapse of the Enron Corp. The three part series reveals that the company had close ties and had enriched financial analysts who overwhelming backed the company despite red flags in the end of 2001; that former Enron Chief Financial officer Andrew Fastow was behind the engineered network of Enron's off-balance-sheet entities; and that an online venture called NewPower designed the conquer the deregulating energy retail market strategy that contributed to Enron's slide into bankruptcy. The file includes a Bloomberg Markets article of May 2001 that contains some preliminary findings on Enron's questionable deals and accounting practices.
Tags: business; Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); mergers and acquisitions; accounting chicanery; stocks and bonds
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Seeing Red: How Ex-Accountant Added Up to Trouble For Humbled Xerox
A Wall Street Journal investigation delves into the bookkeeping scandal at Xerox and finds that it resulted from "growing pressure to compensate for the poor results with accounting gimmickry." The story examines the role of James F. Bingham, the assistant treasurer at the company, who has been fired for "badgering top Xerox executives about the aggressive accounting..." The reporter looks at the Security and Exchange Commission probe into the case, and describes the circumstances surrounding a lawsuit filed by Bingham, "accusing Xerox of firing him for objecting to "accounting fraud."
Tags: SEC; Xerox; Terry Overholser; accounting; Mexico; investigation; Kevin Colburn; investors; Peter Gallagher