What are some examples of major ethical breaches in the recent past that have led to increased scrutiny in the field of financial reporting and analysis?

1. Wells Fargo: In 2016, the company was accused of opening over 1.5 million fake accounts to meet unrealistic sales goals set by management and systematically deceiving customers in order to increase profits.
2. Volkswagen: The German car manufacturer admitted in 2015 to having installed software on its vehicles to cheat emissions tests that were designed to protect the environment from air pollution, resulting in significant fines and reputational damage from regulators around the world.
3. Enron: The energy firm collapsed in 2001 after it had been discovered that executives had secretly created partnerships with other companies as a way of hiding Enron’s massive debts from investors, leading to one of the largest corporate scandals in history and criminal prosecution for numerous individuals involved with running the company.
4. WorldCom: This telecommunications giant filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 after executives were found guilty of masking expenses through false accounting entries and inflating reported earnings by nearly $11 billion over five years–the largest such fraud at a public company ever discovered at that time.