There is a huge difference between the accountants and the attorneys. I am not defending anyone here, but the attorney represent the company, not the investors, BUT the Certified PUBLIC Accountants are required by law to honestly opine and have a fiduciary duty to the share holders to audit the books and report material issues to the shareholders.
Based on a VERY SCANT preliminary review of certain, not all of the 10k and q, it appears that the accountants here did not simply unclearly state the income and assets of Enron, it seems that there is NOTHING. Not mimimum disclosure. No Disclosure.
There are vague hints IN FOOTNOTES of "related parties" and loans are called "repaid" not paid. Its hard to tell, if possible at all, from the filings that Enron was not an oil producer, but a commodities broker.
THERE IS A PURPOSEFUL ATTEMPT TO HIDE SOME OF THE RELEVANT TRANSACTIONS. They are buried in cryptic gobeldegook and fuzzy, carefully chosen language, chosen not to disclose, BUT TO OBFUSCATE.
This, if my preliminary opinions are correct, is VERY bad for Arthur Anderson.
The standard audit letter, and the first hint of Andersen defense that I heard from what I believe is their lawyer is that they are just reviewing what management did.
Two things:
1. The do have to certify that in their opinion, the books kept by fairly reflect the health of the company. It does not and they know it because they help structure the transactions. That's what the destroyed notes would have shown.
2. They ARE management. Andersen Consulting was a conspirator, in every sense of the word, in MAKING the decisions. They help structure the deal SO THAT IT WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE REPORTED!!
And why would a 3 Billion dollar accounting firm take a chance on doing this???
Because they did it before and Congress helped them get out of any liability. And actively Prevented the securities laws from helping over the last 10 years.
Now when you hear Bush is going to change the pension laws to help prevent this, you can put that minuscule solution into perspective. And you realize how misleading his announcing that kind of action is. Amounts to a "cover up" I don't know.
That ain't the problem. |
