But I think it strains credulity to believe that what is being talked about is copies of Enron material. Nor do I think it is finished work product relating to the audit.
Almost certainly, what is missing is the internal communications within Andersen from the principals involved in the Enron audit.
I say that because I have been involved in numerous subpoenas of records of my employer. That is often what is the most difficult to retrieve. Many times these are destroyed routinely, simply as work notes that become outdated. There's no problem with that. Nobody is required to keep every note they take or piece of paper they generate. There is a lot of trash created which is innocent and necessary.
But the stuff that you do keep that becomes part of your files, and the notes and other material that you haven't thrown away yet can't be destroyed once you've received a subpoena. That includes backup tapes for computers or anything at all which is relevant.
What apparently is missing, and we don't know for sure, is the backup material which is routinely kept. We don't have any explanation offered yet as to why these items are gone and that only adds fuel to the fire.
It's possible that this is entirely innocent. But it looks very bad, and given the gravity of the misrepresentation of the financial condition of Enron, it looks like someone is trying very hard to save their own butt.
I am not an attorney, so I don't know what the rules are regarding destruction of records in anticipation of subpoenas; but I would suggest that this happens far more frequently than the article implies.
One possibility I can think of is that when the news about Enron broke, the audit staff on the Enron account took it upon themselves to dump records. Whether that should have been prevented by senior management at Andersen is something that should be looked at.