Adelphia Scandal

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At 1952, the Rigas family was laying the foundation for what would become one of the largest cable television companies in the United States. It would be a few years, however, before the Rigas family could claim they stood atop a cable empire. In these years Adelphia started to witness the exponential growth in the number of subscribers across the country. (Adelphia Communications Corporation, n.d). Those days arrived during the 1980s, Adelphia stood poised to reap the rewards from an industry fast on the rise. Adelphia Communications did not officially exist until 1972; the company entered its inaugural year of business with a considerable head start over other cable operators. (Adelphia Communications Corporation, n.d). “The company served as an umbrella organization for the centralization of the various cable properties owned by Rigas, and, consequently, was supported by more than 20 years of experience from its outset.”(Adelphia Communications Corporation, n.d). During those years Rigas spearheaded the acquisition of more than ten cable systems, bolstering Adelphia's presence in New York and extending its area of service into neighboring states. (Adelphia Communications Corporation, n.d). No one of us can deny that the Rigas family in the beginning was very succeeding to make the Adelphia cable of the largest companies in the United States.

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In the Adelphia scandal, we saw one of the biggest financial frauds, carried out by the founding family of the company. As we can see that the culture of this company was built on fraud and forgery, which led to the scandal. Culture in this company was fraudulently excluded billions of dollars in liabilities from its consolidated financial statements by hiding them on the books of off-balance sheet affiliates, falsified operations statistics and inflated earnings, and undisclosed use of corporate funds for Rigas Family stocked purchases and the acquisition of luxury condominiums in New York and elsewhere. (SEC...