ANDERSON CHICAGO HEAD OFFICE 'DISCUSSED ENRON PURGE'

The London Financial Times Friday Edition ^ | January 18, 2002 00:57 Greenwich Mean Time | Adrian Michaels and Pete Speigel

[umbra]

Officials at Andersen's head office in Chicago took part in regular conference calls and discussed destroying documents with the firm's Enron auditors in Houston in the weeks leading up to the controversial purge, congressional investigators have learnt.

The discussions threaten to ruin attempts by Andersen to contain the Enron damage to a few people in its Houston office.

[umbra]

8 more added to the witness list.

[Shermy]

The patsy in Texas ploy won't work this time.

[cactmh]

Looks like the last stab. Andersen is going down...

[razorback-bert]

Separately, Citigroup, the US's largest financial services group, on Thursday gave the first official assessment of its Enron losses when it took a $228m (£157m) charge against its fourth-quarter earnings.

I don't believe that is all Citigroup is on the hook for.

[Howlin]

Big time.

[truthkeeper]

When are the hearings, and will they be televised?

[Salvation]

Indexing

[Dog Gone]

Wait. We're missing some important details here. In all fairness, discussions about destroying documents, by itself, is not a crime or even suspicious behavior. Every major company has discussions along these lines, and it doesn't mean there's a coverup. It's a matter of keeping business private and away from competitors. It's about control and keeping documents in a central location where one verified document exists.

On the other hand, these guys were quite possibly discussing ways to cover up unethical and criminal activities at a corporate level. If I had to guess, that's exactly what they were doing. But we don't know that from what has been revealed here.

[TwoStep]

Poor Citigroup--NOT!! The Saudi Prince, is a big investor.

[RoseofTexas]

It's OK for the Rapist and his Witch to shred docs. BUT, God forbid if a regular citizen would shred or destroy docs. all hell would break loose! The INJUSTICE of it all!

[gov_bean_ counter]

I am amazed at how quickly the camera was taken off the politicos and on to the bean counters. As you stated, document destruction is not in and of itself a bad thing. The Congressional investigators have found more than enough damaging evidence in the correspondence. Strange since the first thing an independent audit team looks at are the Director's minutes and internal correspondence. You would think that a coordinated effort to hide evidence would include parts of the afore mentioned information.

[OldFriend]

The question is.......who gave Citi-group the heads up......and how much of their debt was reshuffled so as NOT to appear on THEIR bottom line.........this entire affair stinks to high heaven.

[JustTheTruth]

You wrote: "In all fairness, discussions about destroying documents, by itself, is not a crime or even suspicious behavior."

Discussions by top officials leading to the deliberate destruction of documents for the purpose of hiding the truth about fraudulent accounting practices which are under criminal investigation is both suspicious and criminal.

[Dog Gone]

Our respective statements are not in conflict.

[dread78645]

I don't believe that is all Citigroup is on the hook for.

Yep, I understand it to be some 3 billion, not counting underwriting any other loans.
So at 228 mill / quarter they'll write off the whole mess in 14 quarters, or 3 & a half years of tax credits.

[razorback-bert]

Don't forget their exposure to Argentina too.

[coloradan]

It doesn't prove anything, but it sure looks bad that the serious shredding started after the SEC called about an audit of Enron's records.

[Timesink]

We're missing some important details here. In all fairness, discussions about destroying documents, by itself, is not a crime or even suspicious behavior.

a) It depends on just what sorts of documents they are. Some financial documents can be shredded at will, and some must be saved for a lengthy period of time. b) Shredding any documents as part of an intentional plan to destroy evidence of a crime is absolutely illegal. c) This article doesn't even seem to be referring to the legalities (or lack thereof) of the matter, but rather the damage to Andersen itself. They were trying to say "Oh, it's just our Houston office, which got out of control." Now it appears the coverup went right up to headquarters.