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.
I remember in the go go years of the late '60s, the '70s and even into the '80s, AA was perhaps the most conservative of the then Big 8 accounting firms. It was probably the most prestigious, and it certainly was the most arrogant. I've done many deals with AA representing one side or the other over the past 20+ years, and I've generally been reasonably happy with their work.
That said, I think the very conservatism of the firm in former days, combined with the firms hubris (which included lobbying along the lines of "you should accept this position because we, Arthur Andersen, the top firm, are putting it forward") and internal culture of self-satisfaction enabled the cowboys who have run AA for the past 5-10 years to get away with a lot of things that if any other big 5 firm did them, they'd have been hauled up short.
Now, they're all going to pay, the partners perhaps most of all: their capital accounts, which were most of their net worth, are worthless given the lawsuits, and they are losing clients left and right. With the reduced payouts that will endure for years as a result of the litigation and the loss of clients, it will be impossible to keep good juniors and hire. They would be better of if it dies.
And the market, of course, is doing just that. :)