The 10 Biggest Company Blunders of 2016

In this bitterly divided political season, weary Americans can take comfort in knowing that at least something unites warring factions. Senate Democrats and Republicans together memorably spanked Wells Fargo and its CEO at a Senate hearing, making the bank’s fake account fiasco the biggest corporate scandal of 2016. But it certainly wasn’t the only one as business troubles flared like a flaming Samsung phone. look back:

Here’s a look back at the biggest uh-oh moments of the year. These companies’ New Year’s resolution? Do better next year.

10. Dodgers Blackout

Los Angeles baseball fans have suffered for two years from the indignity that many of them actually can’t watch the Los Angeles Dodgers on TV. Blame a stubborn standoff between local cable channels and the team’s station, SportsNet LA, over the price to carry the games. Then came this twist: The U.S. Justice Department alleged DirecTV colluded with local distributors to keep the Dodgers off the air by sharing information to “corrupt” negotiations with SportsNet LA. With a new player and a new layer of intrigue, the Dodger blackout has become more complicated than the infield fly rule.

9. Gawker vs. Hulk Hogan

Ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan opened a can of legal whup-ass against Gawker after the site published a video him allegedly having sex with a friend’s wife. With Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and a Gawker hater, bankrolling the litigation, Gawker had to settle for $31 million, a death blow. “All-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people,” said Gawker founder Nick Denton, “and there was no end in sight.” Gawker was sold and Denton was gone

8. Fox News and Roger Ailes

For once the loudest man in the room didn’t get the last word. Fox News chief Roger Ailes was sued by former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson, alleging she was demoted after spurning Ailes’s advances. The wall of silence broken, others joined in, including Fox superstar Megyn Kelly, who alleged Ailes tried to kiss her three times a decade ago when she was a Washington correspondent. Ailes “categorically” denied Kelly’s allegations, but the overall scandal brought him down, his pain numbed by a $40 million goodbye.

7. EpiPen

Hot seat? More like the electric chair. Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals, was summoned to Washington to explain why her company had jacked up the cost of its life-saving allergy treatment EpiPen by 500 percent from 2007 to more than $600 a pack. By turns defensive and evasive, Bresch had no good answers in the eyes of many lawmakers. Accused of overbilling Medicaid, Mylan ultimately agreed to pay a $465 million fine.

6. Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes had the sort of irresistible origin story that spawned a thousand fawning profiles. As a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, she started Theranos with the promise of delivering full blood tests at your neighborhood drug stores with just a prick of a pin. Theranos soared to $9 billion in value.

Then came allegations the tests didn’t work as advertised and the labs failed federal inspections. Its biggest partner, Walgreens, filed a $140 million breach-of-contract dispute. Theranos continues to fight, and Holmes enjoys the backing of at leaset one top investor, venture capitalist Tim Draper, who believes her good work was wrongly attacked.

5. Zenefits 

No such survival for another onetime Silicon Valley Cinderella. Parker Conrad, whose insurance business middleman startup Zenefits bloated to $4.5 billion in value after just two years, suffered a stark reversal of fortune this year with allegations it operated without the required insurance licenses. California hit the company with a $7 million fine.

Conrad became a poster child for greed and reckless growth and was shown the door in favor of a newer, more soul-searching chief in David Sacks, who told employees: “Our culture and tone have been inappropriate for a highly regulated company.”

4. Emissions drama: Suzuki, Volkswagen, and Nissan

No sooner had Volkswagen started taking baby steps toward turnaround from its emissions scandal in 2015 when other automakers got sucked into the fray. Mitsubishi admitted to using false fuel methods going back as far as 1991, wiping out half the value of Japan’s largest car manufacturer and forcing president Tetsuro Aikawa’s resignation. Suzuki’s chairman, Osamu Suzuki, also stepped down after nearly 40 years after a scandal over improperly testing fuel economy on cars sold in Japan. And Nissan drew the ire of South Korea officials who fined the company for allegedly manipulating emissions data, though Nissan is disputing the allegations in court.

3. Panama Papers

It turns out that the lawyer-client privilege bond is only as sacred as the secrecy that surrounds it. So discovered politicians and executives around the world with the leak and publication of files from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. British Prime Minister David Cameron had a lot of explaining to do when it was shown his family had tucked its fortune into offshore havens safely out of reach British taxes. And Iceland’s prime minister stepped down after documents showed he and his rich wife had a British Virgin Islands company in an apparent conflict of interest.

2. Samsung

As if commercial airline travel wasn’t miserable enough, stories surfaced of passengers’ Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously catching fire. Samsung recalled millions of the devices and the FAA banned the phones from all U.S. flights before the company eventually shelved production. The Christmas buying season put Samsung in major damage control as it insists its
smaller Galaxy S7 phones are safe with “no confirmed cases” of the kinds of battery problems that ignited the Note 7s.

1. Wells Fargo

By now, John Strumpf must feel like he’s been run over by one of those Wells Fargo wagons. The former CEO of the San Francisco bank faced a Senate panel after revelations his employees secretly set up as many as 2 million fake accounts to meet aggressive sales quotas. His apologies — “I am deeply sorry that we’ve failed to fulfill our responsibility to our customers” — got no traction. “You should resign,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Which he did, sort of. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in fines and Strumpf abruptly retired after nine years on the job – with no severance.

But don’t be discouraged. There are 225 companies worldwide who did it right in 2016 earning them a spot on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2017. From big consulting firms like Bain & Company to tech giants like Facebook, there are amazing companies who are doing everything right (and trying to steer clear of scandals). Check them out here!

Source: Glass Door