If AA goes belly up (who really thought anyone would "merge" or acquire such damaged goods) that makes headlines that could otherwise be used to slam Bush.
Poor dems.
Among other things.....
Raise your hand if you think the "Recession" is over...
Raise your hand if you think the market/economy hasnt bottomed yet.....(Raising my hand)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department (news - web sites) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) are working on separate objectives, but their dealings with former Enron auditor Arthur Andersen will affect each other.Now what we have here is a media frenzy, coupled with a blame game and as the Justice Dept tries to have a fall guy and battles the SEC who wants a deep pocket. Government administered business is no better than inept/grasping business.Adio clip: Daschle: Corporate Fraud Should Be Punished (AP)
"There's always going to be some tension between the goals" of the two agencies, David Yellen, dean of Hofstra University Law School, said Wednesday. "In the end, they have to coordinate."
Justice Department prosecutors have been negotiating with Andersen representatives over the past week to 10 days and repeatedly have threatened the big accounting firm with indictment for destroying documents in the Enron case, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
One possible outcome would be for Andersen to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for the shredding of Enron-related documents at Andersen's Houston office last fall. Yet that could bar Andersen from performing audits and approving financial reports that companies file with the SEC, the core of its business — unless Andersen were granted a waiver.
If the SEC agreed to a waiver, it could come with conditions, such as Andersen splitting its auditing and consulting services to eliminate any conflict of interest, as advised by its new oversight committee led by ex-Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Paul Volcker.
Andersen's legal problems cost it a potential merger partner on Wednesday, as rival Ernst & Young said it had decided to scrap the idea of combining with Andersen.
Andersen recently has been in talks with Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, another Big Five accounting firm, to sell all or part of its operations. Matthew Batters, a spokesman for Deloitte, said Wednesday the talks with Andersen were continuing.
Any potential buyer would want to know how much Andersen might have to pay to resolve its case.
The SEC wants Andersen to survive as a viable concern and hopes to recover hundreds of millions of dollars for defrauded Enron investors from the accounting firm.
The SEC apparently has taken a time-out in its dealings with Andersen while the Justice Department proceeds with its criminal case, legal sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
SEC spokesmen declined comment.
Justice spokesmen also declined comment, but it appeared no formal announcement of a resolution of the criminal case would be made before Thursday.
"This dance goes on quite often between Justice and the SEC," said Donald Langevoort, who teaches securities law at Georgetown University. "I don't see anything insuperable here."
Ultimately, he and Yellen said, the two agencies will work together on a legal resolution.
The SEC, unlike the Justice Department, has only civil powers and cannot put wrongdoers in jail. The market watchdog agency often works with Justice prosecutors on big financial-fraud cases, bringing a civil lawsuit simultaneously with Justice's criminal indictment. The SEC also can impose fines on companies and individuals.
High-profile examples include the Wall Street insider-trading scandals of the 1980s and early 1990s. Famed speculator Ivan Boesky, for example, spent two years in prison and paid a $100 million fine. Interestingly, Boesky's attorney was Harvey Pitt, now chairman of the SEC.
Energy trader Enron entered the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history on Dec. 2, toppled by a complex web of partnerships — improperly buttressed by Enron stock — that were used to hide more than $1 billion in debt from investors and the SEC.
Its financial reports, which overstated profits by nearly $600 million since 1997, were approved by the Andersen auditors. Some top Enron executives have said they believed the company's accounting was proper because Andersen had blessed it.
That's Ernst & Young.
AA may have engaged in practices that wrongfully overlooked a conflict of interest, e.g., consulting and auditing for the same firm, and it may have tweaked accounting rules, or even destroyed evidence, a clearly illegal act for which the individuals involved deserve punishment if found guilty, but those failures need not have taken down the entire corporation and thrown a whole bunch of people out of work. For that to happen, attack dog journalists acting at the behest of the Democratic Party had to hype the whole thing way out of proportion in an attempt to smear the White House. What's a few thousand people out of work when Daschle needs a few lame sound bites for the Six O'Clock News?
Pathetic.
A certain thugette at that firm mistreated and abused a 72 year old woman two years ago - and I will despise that firm so long as I live. Yes, I told the mangy little female canine what I thought of her behavior - publicly, in front of three partners - and reduced her to tears. It wasn't nearly enough.
Darkness take them. May their every hope and dream be blighted, may every affection be returned with toad cold indifference, and may whosoever they trust betray them. Further, may every person and thing they care about be taken from them, and that in such a way that the loss is the least of the pain. Now and forever. Unto eternity.
Yes, I really feal that way. Yes, I mean it.
The answer: Authentic collectables have a cool holographic sticker on them, signifying that Arthur Andersen certifies that Don Mattingly or whoever really signed the ball.
Oops. That's an error on the advertiser.
ENRON is a blip on the radar...a micro blip...but if you look at ENRON...you will see the whole scam that the securities industry is...
They are all crooks...Anderson...Enron...Market Makers...UnderWriters....the whole thing is set up to fleece the public...
I am amazed that the "focus" on Enron and Anderson hasn't moved to the real culprit of this scheme...the industry itself and its sub-culture.
Why do you think they issued upgrades when the market was tanking? Where do you think the smart (inside) money was? IT WAS SHORT FOR CHRIST SAKE! Why do you think they kept issueing upgrades? SO THEY COULD SHORT INTO THE SHEEP!!!...
Enron was nothing more than a corporate daytrader playing with leveraged and risky positions...AA helped them....nothing more....
KEEP YOUR EYE ON INDUSTRY! Enron and AA are indicative of a far greater problem...The rest of the boys in the club are plenty pissed off for the spotlight that ENE and AA brought...they will deflect and obfuscate....WATCH THE INDUSTRY