>> And given the way Andersen is organized and run, it seems likely
>> that almost no other partners knew what was going on in the Enron
>> account (or "engagement" as they call them now), which is of
>> course how Andersen is spinning the whole thing.
cian> Except that this sort of thing seems to go on all the time in
cian> the big accountancy firms. They wouldn't have known the
cian> details of this particular instance, but there is obviously a
cian> culture that encourages this kind of behaviour (or certainly
cian> doesn't discourage it.
>From a legal and regulatory standpoint, however, that's a difference
that makes a difference.
cian> Maxwell in the 80s). There's definitely collusion between
cian> those who did the audits, and those who do consultancy on a
cian> particular company according to people I've known who've
cian> worked at Andersons.
Well, there can be cooperation across business lines at one client, but not necessarily. At least, it's not something that can be safely assumed.
I think one partner is normally
cian> responsible for the revenues for a particular company, so
cian> obviously its in his interests.
Not true, at least, not at Andersen. There was a lead partner, Duncan, for Enron audit and another, a "BC", business consulting lead partner for Enron. And their interests don't necessarily conincide. In fact, you might say they conflict: audit letting Enron run itself into the ground is *bad* for the chargeability rates, long term, of the consulting line.
But I was making a more general point: Andersen has about 1400 partners in the US, probably about 5000 worldwide. It's very *unlikely* that any but a very few had any knowledge of what was going on with Enron audit out of the Houston office.
Given that Enron was only about 1/2 of 1% of Andersen revenues, it seems unlikely that any of the executive partners knew anything at all. Which is very unlike the situation at Enron where the top 30 executives or so, in addition to running the company into the ground, knowingly profited from their knowledge of the real situation, at the expense of the rest of Enron employees and stockholders.
Gee, Cian, onlist or off, all I do today is disagree with you... :>
Best, Kendall Clark