Have you ever heard of "company culture" and "institutional memory?" The other offices may not be just like Houston. But it could be reasonably expected that making liberal interpretations of standards, shredding documents, etc. are okay--it is the AA way.
An acquiring firm gets the accounts (profitable), the employees, the lawsuits and liabilities. As it is now, when engagement contracts with clients come up for renewal, some AA clients are dumping them. If Ernst & Young were to acquire AA, EY's existing clients might look at them differently. That is why they are a problem--lawsuits, iability and image.
Only about half of Andersen's business is audit business as I recall. Many of the firm's divisions work in different fields like Consulting, Collection, Tax Policy Analysis etc.
I am simply amazed that many posters here think there is any difference between big accounting firms. Some how A. Andersen is a big bad Dirty Finacial Firm and punishment and blame are going to make them feel better about the world.
All of the big corporations such as Enron have their creative accounting schemes and it is only good management, not auditors, that keep it in check. Auditors are only able to look for purely cooked-books like the Pharmor Pharmacy chain a decade ago when the head guy was stealing the money of his own firm to buy WFL teams etc.
Andersen is just a media and congress-critter fall guy.