Danielle Gray
Case Study Week Two: Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States
1/27/14

Plaintiff/Appellee: United States
Defendant/Appellant: Arthur Andersen LLP

The United States won at the Trial Court and that decision was also held at the lower appellate level saying that Andersen “knowingly and corruptly persuaded another person with intent to cause that person to withhold documents from, or alter documents for use in an official proceeding,” ultimately obstructing justice. In the final Court of Appeals decision the court reversed Andersen’s conviction because of the jury’s misinterpretation of the word impede. Since one definition of impede is to interfere or get in the way of the progress of/hold up, there was no ground to hold them to those charges. Andersen never held up the progress of the case he simply obstructed justice and the book says that the case was remanded for further proceedings. The Plaintiff believed they were right because the shredding of the documents was obstructing justice. Those financial statements and documents were needed in the case to show Enron did in fact “cooking the books” to make their company look more profitable than it was. The Defendant believed they were right because they shredded the documents before they were ever served their formal papers. He did not believe this was “corrupt persuasion.” Once they received their papers there was a company email sent out telling everyone to quit shredding papers. Did Andersen intend to subvert, undermine, or impede governmental fact-finding by suggesting to its employees that they enforce the document retention policy? No, the jury found Andersen to not impede governmental fact-finding of the case.