Carillion's Fall: Accounting for Construction Projects*
Mary Gillett et al.
What the paper says
This case describes the circumstances surrounding the fall of Carillion plc, a large UK construction company. Carillion issued a series of write‐downs that hurt investor confidence and led to debt covenant violations. Students assume the role of a fictional investor, Holly Chapman, who has lost money investing in Carillion. Chapman is seeking to understand what went wrong with the company that led to its demise. To do so, she needs to analyze the company's risky contracts, governance structure, auditors, and accounting choices. The case allows students to explore a rich and complex scenario of business failure. It is set in the United Kingdom, but Carillion reports under IFRS and faces business and governance challenges that translate easily to the Canadian context and elsewhere. The case is best suited to MBA, Executive MBA, and upper‐year undergraduate classes in accounting or governance. It provides an opportunity to explore (1) risk management, (2) governance, auditor, and regulator failures, and (3) accounting for construction projects, goodwill impairment, early payment facilities, and pensions.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.