Did you see the following pile of Wall Street marketing? I guess we need more of the likes of Enron, Refco, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, etc etc etc>
Wall Street is losing its competitive edge because of excessive regulation, a blue-ribbon panel said. The closely watched report called for better protection for auditors, company staff and directors from prosecutors and lawsuits.
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On June 15, 2002, Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron. Nancy Temple (Andersen Legal Dept.) and David Duncan (Lead Partner for the Andersen account) were cited as the responsible managers in this scandal as they had given the order to shred relevant documents. Since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not allow convicted felons to audit public companies, the firm agreed to surrender its licenses and its right to practice before the SEC on August 31. The Anderson indictment also put a spotlight on its faulty accounting of other companies, most notably Sunbeam and WorldCom. The subsequent bankruptcy of WorldCom, which quickly surpassed Enron as the biggest bankruptcy in history, then led to a domino effect of accounting and other corporate scandals that continues to tarnish American business practices.
On May 31, 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously overturned Andersen's conviction due to flaws in the jury instructions. In the court's view, the instructions allowed the jury to convict Andersen without proving that the firm knew it had broken the law or that there had been a link to any official proceeding that prohibited the destruction of documents. The opinion was also highly skeptical of the government's definition of "corrupt persuasion" — persuasion with an improper purpose even without knowing an act is unlawful.
Despite this ruling, it is highly unlikely Andersen will ever return as a viable business. The firm lost nearly all of its clients when it was indicted, and there are over 100 civil suits pending against the firm related to its audits of Enron and other companies. It began winding down its American operations after the indictment. From a high of 28,000 employees in the US and 85,000 worldwide, the firm is now down to around 200 based primarily in Chicago. Most of their attention is on handling the lawsuits and presiding over the orderly dissolution of the company. |
