101 Dumbest Moments in Business Edit

2. Investment bank error in your favor. Collect an additional $1.43 billion. - The judge in billionaire Ronald Perelman’s lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, exasperated by the latter’s delays in handing over documents, instructs jurors to assume that the firm committed fraud. The bank insists it isn’t stonewalling, just running into technology glitches. The jury awards Perelman—who had sued Morgan over its role in his sale of Coleman to Sunbeam for stock that became worthless after an accounting scandal led to bankruptcy—$1.45 billion in damages. Perelman had reportedly offered to settle for $20 million.

11. To leave a message, press ... right ... there ... no, a little lower ... that’s it ... ah-h-h-h-h.
In July, Gerald Martin, the founder of a physicians’ answering service in Westchester County, N.Y., is charged with computer tampering after a competing service discovers that its system has been hacked. Patients trying to reach their doctors were instead greeted with busy signals or the sounds of sexual moaning.

15. A perfectly good orgy of violence and mayhem, ruined.
In June a Dutch programmer releases software that lets players of Take-Two Interactive’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas access sexually explicit content left in the game’s source code by its developers. Already marked “Mature” for “blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content, and use of drugs,” the game gets rerated “Adults Only,” causing Target and Wal-Mart to pull it from stores. Take-Two’s quarterly revenues fall $40 million short of projections.