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ACC 260 Week 2 - Unethical Practices of Arthur Andersen

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Arthur Andersen, one of the United State's premier accounting firms, contributed to the
Enron disaster by taking a blind-eye to the unethical, and obviously illegal, accounting practices
from Enron. As the agency that was ethically bound to professionally audit Enron's books, they
failed in their due diligence and lost all credibility in the profession.
It is clear that Arthur Andersen had several hidden agendas when dealing with the Enron
debacle. First, they were afraid that they would lose many of their clients should it be discovered
that they had acted improperly with the audit (and they were correct). Second, they had a fiscal
motivation to keep the problems covered up - they stood to lose a great deal of money in feeds,
fines, and lost business. Third, with an ethics issue of this complexity, the executives at
Andersen faced the very real possibility of actually losing the entire business should the details
be uncovered of their relationship with Enron. Fourth, the Andersen company culture seemed to
have evolved with a dual issue - please the customer at all counts, but do so by performing
correct accounting.
An auditor is duty and professionally bound based on their CPA license and standard of
procedure to make decisions that are fair, legal, and in the best interest of the public. This is
primarily so that we can have confidence in the CPA system, and to know that the documents
that are made part of the public record are accurate, fair, and the methodology legal. This
fiduciary responsibility even has legal backing in that the Companies Act of 1956 requires that
"every balance sheet and profit and loss account of a company should give a true and fair view of
the state of affairs of the company" (cited in "The Fiduciary Duty of An Auditor," in
http://www.legalservicesindia.com/articles/auditors.htm.
References:
Kadlec, Daniel, (1/13/02), "Enron: Who's Accountable?" Time Magazine.
Book excerpt: Inside Arthur Andersen, cited in:
http://books.google.com/books?id=MrmUWklBjYgC&
pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=arthur+anderson+motivations+on+enron&source=web&ots=PpAoM
AcLDz&sig=sE0OFnMns7rCJyAoOWkX91Ls2k0&hl=en&ei=wcWTSZXWH4G0sAPz1PidBw
&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result
"Arthur Andersen Loses Accounting Clients Rapidly," cited in:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-120422400.html

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Arthur Andersen, one of the United State's premier accounting firms, contributed to the Enron disaster by taking a blind-eye to the unethical, and obviously illegal, accounting practices from Enron. As the agency that was ethically bound to professionally audit Enron's books, they failed in their du ...
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