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To: tcmay who wrote (166477)	6/17/2002 3:40:36 PM
From: GVTucker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

tcmay, RE: Arthur Anderson death sentence too harsh. What you say makes sense in theory, Tim, but in practice it really doesn't matter. No matter whether the verdict was guilty or innocent, Arthur Andersen had already dealt themselves a death penalty. Practically the only thing that an audit firm can offer is credibility. Enron killed Arthur Andersen's credibility. The market would have punished anyone foolish enough to keep its audit business with Arthur Andersen. For the most part, all of Arthur Andersen's audit clients have already left. The government didn't give AA the death penalty. The market already had taken care of it.

To: tcmay who wrote (166477)	6/18/2002 12:41:03 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

RE:"There is something wrong with our legal system if an isolated incident--with no strong evidence that this was some kind of AA-wide common practice" That's an understatement. Now, when does the legal profession go after the Federal Government for it's bogus acounting practices? The non-existent social security trust fund is enough for starters. I think the key is that the federal government hasn't cost anyone any money like Enron did, yet. Heads and corporations are gonna roll because of lost money...not because of right and wrong. The lucky CEOs who have already got their parachutes are the lucky ones. JIm

To: tcmay who wrote (166477)	6/18/2002 6:42:48 AM
From: TGPTNDR	Respond to of 186894

Tim, Re: <This seems overly harsh for the sins of one or a few people in a regional office.> Some would argue that it was corporate policy. Some extracts: "Referring to previous litigation in recent years between the SEC and Andersen involving auditing failures of Sunbeam and Waste Management, a lead prosecutor in the current case explained, "This was a management team that already had two strikes against them." Indeed, Andersen never even bothered to discipline the auditors penalized by the SEC in the Waste Management fiasco. Worse, Andersen assigned one of those auditors the task of developing the firm's document-retention policy, which figured prominently in the Enron-related trial." "...Andersen corporate attorney in Chicago telling the firm's lead auditor of Enron to "delet[e] some language that might suggest we have concluded the [Enron earnings] release is misleading" washingtontimes.com They just wouldn't listen! -tgp