'Pleite klingt anders' — Schiesser filed for bankruptcy while its sales rose 20%
Germany's oldest underwear maker drowned in other brands' licences and a broken IT rollout, filing in 2009 while sales rose. Insolvency became the cure.
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2,000 VERÖFFENTLICHTE FÄLLE · REGELMÄSSIG AKTUALISIERTMixin Network lost $200M in a cloud-database breach — users were told to eat half
Hackers hit the cloud provider behind "decentralized" Mixin Network in 2023; the founder pledged to restore 50% of losses, the rest as IOU bond tokens.
Fall lesenP&G lost $157M on a swap it didn't understand — Bankers Trust said 'we set 'em up'
Bankers Trust sold P&G a leveraged interest rate swap that P&G did not understand, losing $157M. Secret tapes showed Bankers Trust saying 'we set 'em up.'
Fall lesenKeurig said K-Cups were recyclable — Canada, the SEC and US courts disagreed
Between 2022 and 2024, Keurig's K-Cup recyclability claims drew a CA$3.8M penalty in Canada, a $10M US class action and a $1.5M SEC settlement.
Fall lesenEdinburgh's £835m tram line: a fixed-price contract signed on a half-finished design
The 2007 auditor called the tram plan sound. A fixed-price contract on unfinished designs stalled it; the line opened five years late, half length, at £835.7m.
Fall lesenComverse's founder backdated options for 15 years — then fled to Namibia for a decade
The voicemail pioneer dated stock grants to the stock's lows; its CEO fled to a country with no extradition treaty, and shareholders settled for $225 million.
Fall lesenInsys Therapeutics: bribes to push a fentanyl spray ended in conviction and liquidation
Insys turned a cancer-only fentanyl spray into a blockbuster by bribing doctors and misleading insurers — ending in a racketeering conviction and Chapter 11.
Fall lesenDAMAC sold Dubai golf communities on Trump courses and a rainforest; both ran late
DAMAC branded two master communities around celebrity golf and a region-first rainforest — the first course opened 16 months late, the second stayed unopened.
Fall lesenBlumarine was bought, halved and relaunched — six years on, production is ending
Liu Jo's founder bought the label in 2019 and cut half the workforce to 'restart'. In January 2026 parent Blufin announced it will stop producing anything.
Fall lesenCoca-Cola's OK Soda targeted Gen X with irony and anti-advertising. Nobody bought it.
Coca-Cola launched OK Soda in 1993, targeting Gen X with ironic anti-advertising. It reached less than 3% market share and was canceled in 7 months.
Fall lesenCERN's 750 GeV bump: 500 papers about a statistical wiggle
Both LHC experiments saw a bump in the same place; five hundred theory papers later, more data showed it was never there.
Fall lesenTaiwan's biggest food conglomerate sold gutter oil as cooking oil
A supplier mixed waste oil into 'lard' sold to Ting Hsin and Wei Chuan; the boycott that followed helped force Ting Hsin's Taiwan noodle business to shut down.
Fall lesenDubai Maritime City: sold in 2003 for 2012, still laying its roads in 2021
Dubai World's 2.27 sq km maritime district was promised complete by 2012; a debt crisis froze it, and DP World was still buying it infrastructure in 2022.
Fall lesenInfogrames bought the Atari name on debt — twelve years later it filed for bankruptcy
Lyon's Infogrames was the world's no.2 games publisher when it bought Atari for $100m in 2001. The debt it issued to pay made every year after a loss year.
Fall lesenTsingshan's short squeeze broke the LME — $19.7B in margin calls, 9,000 trades cancelled
A Chinese steel giant's short position in nickel hit $8B in margin calls. The LME suspended trading, cancelled 9,000 trades, and nearly collapsed.
Fall lesenA home search that ended in no charges still cost Yonekura Ryoko her ad campaigns
Narcotics search of actress Yonekura Ryoko's home paused Rakuten Mobile work and emptied Kose Cosmeport's site of her photos — she was never charged.
Fall lesenFord bet $200 million on one bomber an hour — and 1942 asked, 'Will it Run?'
Sorensen sketched a bomber plant overnight on hotel notepaper; Edsel Ford approved $200 million on the drawing. Critics soon asked, 'Will it Run?'
Fall lesenCountry Garden funded its scale entirely with debt and presale cash — then both dried up
China's biggest private developer expanded on borrowed money serviced by homes sold before they were built, then defaulted when buyers stopped paying deposits.
Fall lesenPayPal beat India's FIU in court, then registered as a reporting entity anyway
FIU-IND fined PayPal Rs 96 lakh in 2020 for never registering under India's AML law; Delhi High Court vacated the fine in 2023 — PayPal signed up in 2024.
Fall lesenJennyfer rebranded away from its teen roots — then couldn't find its way back
Jennyfer rebranded to 'Don't Call Me Jennyfer' in 2019. The name confused customers, and after six years of failed restructurings, the brand was liquidated.
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