Orpea's elder-care scandal wiped out 90% of its market value
A 2022 book accused French care-home group Orpea of cost-cutting that endangered residents, sending its shares down 90% and forcing a restructuring.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDNixdorf built Europe's fourth-largest computer company — and missed the PC entirely
Nixdorf built Europe's fourth-largest computer maker — then refused to enter the PC market. Within two years of the founder's death, it was losing money.
Read the caseNovartis secretly ran its own Japan drug trials — the results turned out fake
A Novartis employee worked undisclosed on five university trials of its own drug; two were retracted for falsified data, and Japan filed a criminal complaint.
Read the caseFuli Forest — Hangzhou's bakery of 25 years — went bankrupt with zero staff left
Founded in 2000, Fuli Forest was Hangzhou's birthday-cake habit. After sudden closures, fake cards and 200+ lawsuits, the court ordered liquidation.
Read the caseAugust Horch walked out on his own car company — and lost the right to his own name
Pushed out by shareholders, August Horch started a second car company under his own name. His old firm sued, won, and he had to rebrand into Audi.
Read the caseSouth Korean data center ran 12-yr-old batteries 60cm from servers — 647 systems down
In September 2025 a lithium battery exploded during a safety exercise at South Korea's NIRS data center, knocking out 647 government systems for weeks.
Read the caseInvestors rigged Watani Iron Steel shares around its Nomu debut — SR45.9m clawed back
Five investors manipulated Watani Iron Steel shares before and after its 2021 Nomu listing; Saudi ACRSD fined them SR3.5m and ordered SR41.4m repaid.
Read the caseMankind Pharma's Manforce condom ads aired in family hours — ASCI upheld complaints
ASCI ruled Manforce Cocktail Condom TV ads breached the 10 pm–6 am watershed two years after the MIB advisory — family-hour airing was the violation.
Read the caseUbiquiti's 'catastrophic breach' was its own engineer's 50-bitcoin extortion plot
A senior engineer faked a breach, demanded 50 bitcoin and posed as a whistleblower — and the company's vague disclosure helped sink its stock 20% in two days.
Read the caseAdvance Create booked ¥8bn of ad revenue early and fed its auditors scripted answers
A third-party probe found the insurance comparison group's ad arm booked ¥7.5bn of revenue before ads ran, then fed insurers scripted answers for the auditors.
Read the caseStaples tried to buy Office Depot twice — blocked in 1997 and again in 2016
Nineteen years apart, the same top-two overlap stopped the same deal twice: office superstores in 1997, big-business delivery accounts in 2016.
Read the caseTata's Zica hatchback collided with the Zika virus — and launched as Tiago instead
Tata picked 'Zica' — short for zippy car — months before Zika became a global emergency. The name died anyway, and a public vote renamed the hatchback Tiago.
Read the caseFig & Viper was Arisa Ueno's brand — three years after she left, it ended
Launched September 2011 by neogal icon Arisa Ueno, Fig & Viper peaked at six stores. She left in July 2022; the brand ended at the close of August 2025.
Read the caseHTC was the largest smartphone maker in the US — then it lost 99% of its value
HTC went from 24% US smartphone share to 0.5% in eight years, undone by marketing neglect, patent wars, and a failure to build a brand consumers wanted.
Read the caseSouth Korea's 'stem cell hero' Hwang Woo-suk faked his breakthrough cloning results
Hwang Woo-suk was hailed as a national hero for cloning human stem cells in Science. The data was fabricated, and the scandal toppled a scientific star.
Read the caseTaipei's first French-style department store lasted seven years
Mingde Printemps opened in Taipei in 1995 as Taipei's first French-system department store, a joint venture with France's Printemps. It closed in 2002.
Read the caseThe Lagoons: Sama Dubai's $17.7bn island district stalled into a sandbank
Seven artificial islands were shaped for Dubai's $17.7bn district, then the crash and a fraud probe froze it — buyers got neither homes nor refunds.
Read the caseSoundCloud's $700M valuation melted to $150M in two years
A beloved free streaming platform signed the major labels, then discovered its costs outran its revenue — 40% of staff laid off in 2017.
Read the caseJoseph Jett created $350M in phantom bond profits — Kidder Peabody was sold months later
Joseph Jett exploited a computer flaw to book $350M in fake profits at Kidder Peabody, pocketed $11.4M in bonuses — GE took a $210M charge and sold the firm.
Read the caseAdidas ended its $2B-a-year Yeezy line over Ye's remarks
Adidas terminated Yeezy with one statement, stopped all payments, took a €250M hit and posted its first annual net loss in three decades.
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