Mozilla promoted Brendan Eich to CEO — a 2008 donation surfaced and he lasted 11 days
A co-founder and CTO became CEO, but a $1,000 donation to California's same-sex-marriage ban became public. Staff and partners revolted.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDBaleno dressed a generation of Chinese shoppers — then Uniqlo and Zara made it invisible
Hong Kong's Baleno grew to 5,000 stores across China as the go-to casual brand of the 1990s, then fast fashion made its mid-market positioning irrelevant.
Read the caseCancer researcher fabricated data in 30 papers — MD Anderson forced retirement
Bharat Aggarwal was a star at MD Anderson, studying curcumin and cancer. An investigation found fabricated images — 30 papers retracted, forced retirement.
Read the caseLinks of London collapsed in 2019 after its owner's accounting scandal cut it off
Bought by Folli Follie for €45M in 2006, the jeweller lost £20.5M on £42.9M of sales in 2017. When its owner was caught inflating revenue, no buyer came.
Read the caseIdemitsu pledged to cut 300,000 bpd of refining by 2030 — then reversed course in 2026
Japan's No.2 refiner bet EVs would gut gasoline demand, closed one refinery and promised deeper cuts — then kept all six plants as EVs stalled.
Read the caseMeta's 'designed for privacy' glasses shipped users' intimate footage to Kenya reviewers
Ray-Ban smart-glasses footage — undressing, toilets, sex — was reviewed by Kenya subcontractors; an ICO inquiry and a US class action followed
Read the caseMercon Coffee, a 150-year-old trader, bet on inventory and lost when prices fell
Coffee trader Mercon stockpiled 2.4M bags during COVID, financed with $119.6M of loans; price collapse and rate hikes forced a $363M-debt Chapter 11.
Read the caseSpotify's conduct policy lasted three weeks — Sony's break with R. Kelly was permanent
Spotify pulled R. Kelly's music under a new policy and reversed the policy in three weeks — ten months later Sony ended the record deal for good.
Read the caseOman and Kuwait's $9bn Duqm refinery: EPC began in 2018, the ribbon came in 2024
A 50/50 state JV began building a 230,000 bpd desert refinery in 2018 against a 2022 startup; the heads of state cut the ribbon in February 2024.
Read the caseColorado Group: a $430m boom-time buyout ended with the banks taking the shoe chain
Affinity Equity's debt-fuelled 2006 buyout left the footwear group carrying a boom-sized debt load into the downturn; its 12 lenders seized it in 2011.
Read the caseFamily trusts sank Sinclair's $6.6B Tribune deal when the FCC saw through the shells
Sinclair parked Tribune stations with 'independent' buyers to clear US ownership caps; the FCC saw the family-tied shells and Tribune walked.
Read the caseA streamer's sanitary-pad brand outsold Sofy — then buyers found black matter inside
Mianmian de Yang sold the trust a streamer built, on pads it never made. In April 2025 buyers found black foreign matter inside, and it pulled everything.
Read the caseDior fired John Galliano in a week; the Paris court fined him six months later
A café video cost the era's most celebrated fashion job in six days — suspension on Feb 25, dismissal on March 1, a conviction in September.
Read the caseA 21.7-million-pound E. coli recall put 67-year-old Topps Meat out of business
E. coli in Topps frozen hamburgers triggered the second-largest U.S. beef recall at the time; the company closed within two weeks and liquidated.
Read the caseA Bell Labs physicist faked breakthroughs across 28 papers — physics' biggest fraud
Jan Hendrik Schön published organic-electronics 'breakthroughs' in Science and Nature at a rapid rate — until identical noise in two experiments gave him away.
Read the caseMaplin bet 217 high-street stores against Amazon — then went into administration
Maplin, a 50-year-old electronics chain, never built a real online business. It collapsed in February 2018 with 217 stores and 2,335 staff, and no buyer came.
Read the caseLi & Fung was Hong Kong's great trading house — then 95% of its value vanished
For a century Li & Fung connected Asian factories to Western retailers. As sourcing moved online, it lost 95% of its market value and was taken private in 2020.
Read the caseVostu: Brazil's 'Zynga' bought Facebook users faster than its games could repay
Brazil's biggest social-gaming company raised US$46m at a US$300m valuation on paid-for users — a lawsuit and rule changes left it a tenth of its size.
Read the caseGulf Bank sold clients FX derivatives that blew up — and Kuwait guaranteed every deposit
Kuwait's third-largest bank booked a $1.2B loss in 2008 when clients refused to honor losing currency derivatives, forcing a central bank rescue.
Read the caseKirin's '100% melon taste' Tropicana was 2% melon — the regulator ordered a stop
The packaging promised muskmelon. The mix was 2% melon juice and 98% grape, apple and banana — a misleading-representation order under Japan's advertising law.
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