He broke news of the insider trading guilty plea of former ImClone CEO Sam Waksal; SEC fraud charges against WorldCom; the plan to dissolve accounting firm Arthur Andersen; Wall Street analyst Jack Grubman's conflict of interest settlement; the suicide of former Enron executive Cliff Baxter; and details of the global settlement between tobacco companies and the states.
High-profile business scandals and failures (e.g. Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom) led to calls for enhanced corporate governance and risk management.
Zuckerman has twice been part of a team which won the Gerald Loeb Award for breaking news coverage: first for coverage of the collapse of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors in 2007, and then for coverage of the demise of telecom provider WorldCom in 2003.
During this period the firm advised on almost 1000 restructuring transactions (including 12 of the 15 largest bankruptcy cases), special situations or Distressed M&A, with aggregate debt claims in excess of $1.5 trillion, including cases such as Lehman Brothers, WorldCom, Enron, General Motors and CIT Group.
Rakoff appointed former SEC chairman Richard C. Breeden to oversee Worldcom's compliance with the SEC agreement.
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Movie Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), featuring Jim Carrey: The closing credits begin with a Special Thanks To list, naming executives at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, ImClone Systems, Arthur Andersen, Cendant and HealthSouth.
An ill-timed birthday event around the time of the IPO led various commentators to draw comparisons to the excesses of notorious executives including Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom) and Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco International).
There was widespread unrest after the scandals in the US, involving Enron, WorldCom and Tyco.
The Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) was established after a series of corporate scandals, including the collapse of Enron and WorldCom in the United States and of Parmalat in Europe, led to demand for an independent body to oversee auditors and to ensure that audit standards are in the public interest.
Lerach was involved in many securities class action and corporate derivative suits in recent years, including Enron, Dynegy, Qwest, WorldCom, Citibank, Drexel Burnham, Tyco, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston, Global Crossing, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, ExxonMobil, R.J. Reynolds, Arthur Andersen, and AOL Time Warner.