Ex-Andersen Official Plans Book
Wednesday February 13, 5:14 pm Eastern Time
Former Arthur Andersen Official Plans Book About Accounting Firm's Involvement With Enron
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former partner and ethics specialist with Arthur Andersen is writing a book about the accounting firm's involvement with Enron and other financial scandals.
Barbara Ley Toffler's ``Our People: How Arthur Andersen Won Big Business -- And Lost Its Way'' is scheduled to be released in spring 2003 from Broadway Books, a division of Random House Inc.
``Toffler will explore how Andersen's approach to business meant never questioning the client -- even if what it was doing was wrong,'' the publisher said Wednesday in a statement.
``It meant `billing your brains out,' in the words of one associate, and compromising quality. It meant using a deep knowledge of the law and of accounting to cut companies every possible break. It meant living the mantra `Keep The Client Happy.'''
Terms were not disclosed, but Toffler's literary agent, Susan Ginsburg, said the deal is worth in the high six figures.
Toffler, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, was the founder and partner-in-charge of Arthur Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices Consulting Service. She resigned in 1999, after four years, because she was disillusioned by the firm's business practices.
Not long before she left, Toffler's service at Andersen released a study on the importance of ethics.
``The worst situation is to have workers believe the ethics guidelines exist primarily to protect management from blame,'' Toffler said at the time. ``This breeds cynicism and, our study shows, actually promotes unethical behavior. In fact, it is worse than having no program at all.''
At least four other books are planned about Enron, the Houston-based energy trading company that collapsed last year amid allegations of managerial greed and faulty accounting. Arthur Andersen was Enron's longtime auditor.
Notable deals include a collaboration between two writers at Fortune magazine, for which they will receive a reported $1.4 million from Penguin Putnam, and a six-figure contract from Doubleday for a book by Texas-based journalist Mimi Swartz. |
