Care to remember who his auditors were at Sunbeam?
Care to remember who his auditors were at Sunbeam?
From:
***** "Chainsaw Al" to Pay $15 Million
Well, look who’s back in the news.
On Friday, "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap--turnaround specialist and former CEO at Sunbeam Corp--agreed on Friday to pay $15 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit accusing him and other Sunbeam executives of inflating stock share prices. A civil trial for the suit was scheduled to start Monday.
The class action lawsuit accused Sunbeam and its officers of misleading investors about the appliance maker's sales and earnings in 1997 and 1998. The suit also alleged that the executives used inflated stock prices to complete mergers with Coleman, Signature Brands USA Inc. and First Alert Inc.
The company restated financial results for the six quarters before Dunlap was fired.
Sunbeam’s auditor at the time: Andersen, which also signed off on the financial statements of Enron Corp. and Waste Management.
*****
I'm sensing a pattern here. When the top managers are grifters and Three Card Monty experts, and when the auditors are on the payroll and are paid to look the other way, it's not free enterprise. It's a con game.
I'll say it again: the shareholders of corporations that do business in this country had better stop hiring and tolerating ruthless, dishonest managers. The alternative is more government regulation. We're already getting a whiff of that.