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The Enron scandal is the third in a string of financial disasters for Andersen. The firm allegedly signed off on financial statements for Sunbeam Corp., which was later sued by the SEC for fraud, and for Waste Management, which later was found to have overstated profits by $1.4 billion. Andersen paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle those cases and a $7 million government fine.

Could it be that AA is the real reason for Enron employee's losing millions? They were putting out false financial statements.

The reputation of AA over here isn't very good. I remember being told, "Once you let them in, you never get rid of them. Once they start giving advice, they never stop." And as such they entrench themselves within companies. However I can't think of a single company that has been successfully guided by that crew. The second part of their reputation over here is that they treat their employees very badly.

Regards, Ivan

I think the main reason employees lost all of their 401k money is that they were stupid and had it all invested in company stock.

It never fails. Employees have a naivte that allows them to think that their employer is a bottomless pit of money. I have several clients that are dangling with chapter 11, and the managers and employees do not have a clue that it could be the beginning of the end.

I would also like to see the media quit saying that pension funds were wiped out as they were 401k accounts. They were not defined benfit plans.

Justin

--yes, but if the statements were false, it was up to enron execs to fire them and correct the matter and notify the SEC then, correct? I am assuming this didn't happen, haven't followed the background to this as close as I could.

I feel sorry for the employees who put their trust and retirement into magic beans "stock" scams, the rest of those execs and upper management and the accountants and the politicians with their hands out for cash can go hang far as I am concerned, and I hope the investigation nails everyone involved, no matter who they are, or where they are. No sacred cows, if there's democrat crooks, hang em, republican crooks, hang em, full prosecution. I'd also like to see a reopening of every financial scandal of the last twenty years, you name it, I'd like to see it, whitewater to BCCI to the S&L scandals, and throw in the 'drug war' and smuggling and money laundering to boot, oh ya, illegal immigration and fast track free trading. plenty of scandals to choose from. "Government by bribe" is the major cause of "bad government", IMO.

AA & Enron are both responsible. Enron knew its situation in the fall and AA also knew Enron's situation. Both are responsible for not disclosing accurately it appears; although the full jury is still out and perhaps giant Enron's downward momentum was steeply accelerated by 9/11 and the financial information made public simply could not keep pace with the unprecedented collapse. At the first sign of real wrongdoing on the part of Enron, AA was ethically obliged to resign from the audit engagement if they had a problem with whatever Enron management was doing or wanted the company's financial statement to reflect. If there is also deliberate book cooking, then AA is still complicit. But it certainly wouldn't be the first time for any of the big public accounting firms, would it? It is a sad situation. The fact that the company fell is not surprising in the current post-9/11 climate. But it's a sad situation because of the workers' lost retirement funds. It's funny because dems don't like business bailouts but, especially in this case, a bailout would have helped the folks the dems claim to care the most about. Dems always forget that it is BUSINESS that employs folks in the first place.