Yes, it's that time of year to nominate the biggest turkeys since last November.

This year's list is extensive. There's no shortage of candidates so I thought better list them all and let you decide.



Who can forget the way David Edmondson lost his job as CEO of RadioShack when he was caught out lying about his credentials?

Or Conrad Black's bizarre claim that he was "freedom fighter"? Sure sounds better than a defendant looking at a long spell in jail for a multi-million dollar rip-off at Hollinger International.

Former Enron chief executive officer Jeff Skilling gets a special mention for the proclaming his innocence in that interview with the Wall Street Journal. Totally unrepentant, he claimed he prepared for the trial by trekking through the Utah wilderness, sleeping on the ground and eating caterpillars and grub worms. And a lot of good that did him too!

And while we are on the subject of Enron, let's not forget Ken Lay's extraordinary claim that he was a victim of a wave of terror by prosecutors. Of course in the end Kenny Boy escaped conviction by dying.

Sarbanes-Oxley, as always had, its fair share of critics. Not without justification. But the weirdest attack came from Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer who claimed he could not get his kids an XBox because of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Who can forget Fannie Mae's accounting shell games?

Or Hewlett-Packard's incompetent corporate governance which will go down as a textbook example for boardrooms and business schools around the world.

Or for that matter ExxonMobil's $400 million golden farewell to Lee Raymond.

But then, there was plenty of that sort of stuff around with the backdating scandals. My favourite was the way Cablevision Systems granted options to a board member who had died.

Options shenanigans did not stop at backdating and springloading either. For instance, there were the revelations how companies had made some of their executives rich by exploiting the 9/11 market decline to issue more stock options than they had during comparable periods in years past.

Australia produced its share of turkeys too. Like timber giant Gunns, which decided to fight environmentalists by suing them. And of course the scandal about AWB and its bribes to Saddam Hussein.

So there we have it. Hard to pick a winner really. But if you see any there, let me know. Or can you nominate others?