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To: Disestablishmentarian
ME: In the Enron crisis the entire accounting firm of Arther Anderson (sic) was found to be cooking the books.

YOU:SHAME!

This is UTTERLY FALSE. The destruction of Arthur Andersen was a great crime against a venerated and great American accounting firm.

Well, here's the Wikipedia summary on the former company:

In 2002, the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States after being found guilty of criminal charges relating to the firm's auditing of Enron, an energy corporation based in Texas, which filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[1] In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed Arthur Andersen's conviction due to serious errors in the trial judge's instructions to the jury that convicted the firm.[2]

...

On June 15, 2002, Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron, resulting in the Enron scandal. Although the Supreme Court reversed the firm's conviction, the impact of the scandal combined with the findings of criminal complicity ultimately destroyed the firm. Nancy Temple (in the firm's legal department) and David Duncan (lead partner for the Enron account) were cited as the responsible managers in this scandal because they ordered subordinates to shred relevant documents.

...

The indictment also put a spotlight on the firm's faulty audits of other companies, most notably Waste Management, Sunbeam, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona and WorldCom. The subsequent bankruptcy of WorldCom, which quickly surpassed Enron as the biggest bankruptcy in history (and has since been passed by the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and WaMu in the 2008 financial crisis) led to a domino effect of accounting and corporate scandals.

...

On May 31, 2005, in Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed Andersen's conviction because of serious errors in the trial judge's jury instructions.[2] The Supreme Court held that the instructions were too vague to allow a jury to find that obstruction of justice had occurred. The court found that the instructions were worded in such a way that Andersen could have been convicted without any proof 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, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, also expressed skepticism of the government's concept of "corrupt persuasion"—persuading someone to engage in an act with an improper purpose without knowing that the act is unlawful.

Since the ruling vacated Andersen's felony conviction, it theoretically left Andersen free to resume operations. The damage to the Andersen name was so severe, however, that it has not returned as a viable business even on a limited scale. There are over 100 civil suits pending against the firm related to its audits of Enron and other companies.[when?] Even before voluntarily surrendering its right to practice before the SEC, it had many of its state licences revoked. A new verb, "Enron-ed", was coined by John M. Cunningham, the former Arthur Andersen Director in the Seattle Office, to describe the demise of Arthur Andersen.

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.

Sorry for my incomplete summary of Arthur Anderson's demise. I agree it's bad form to say that someone (or entity) has been convicted of a crime, even if they have, without noting that it was overturned on appeal, which it was in this case.

Maybe Arthur Anderson was a great accounting firm until this incident brought them down. I have a friend who worked for Enron, he says it was a great company too, and he too might also be right. Ken Lay's conviction was vacated upon his death, too.

There was a very strong scent of prosecutors over-reaching in their attacks on Enron and Anderson.

I suppose though, if I was one of the millions of shareholders who lost money in the Enron bankruptcy, or the bankruptcy of World Com, or the financial troubles of Waste Management, Sunbeam, and the Baptist Foundation of Arizona, due in part to faulty audits by Arthur Anderson, I might not feel the same way.

1,985 posted on 07/30/2018 8:19:37 AM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Jack Black

New Qanon thread started Sunday:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3674854/posts

A lot of people are not seeing your posts.


1,987 posted on 07/30/2018 9:22:35 AM PDT by Yulee
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To: Jack Black; Disestablishmentarian
Try READING THE ACTUAL DECISION rather than a publicly editable Wikipedia article, Jack. Most people know that Wikipedia is NOT AN AUTHORITY to be cited on such things.

Arthur Anderson was Exonerated 9 to 0. They did NOTHING WRONG. There is nothing wrong in destruction of records that ARE NOT UNDER SUBPOENA and were not ever going to be under subpoena and have never been subject to subpoena before. Nor has an entire accounting firm EVER been indicted when only a single or small group been involved in wrong doing. THIS WAS CREATIVE PROSECUTION with no precedent!

This has NOTHING to do with what the Judge instructed the Jury. It has everything to do with what the LAW SAYS!

Again, READ "Licensed to Lie, Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice" by Lyndsy Powell. 2014. She was one of the team of lawyers who defended the Merrill Lynch four and one of the lawyers who argued the case before the 5th Circuit and the US Supreme Court and WON. Not some Wikipedia article.

1,989 posted on 07/30/2018 9:37:45 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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