tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton Mission, vision, and goals provide a professional and moral compass for corporations. In the case of Arthur Andersen’s decent, compromises were made that in the end destined the accounting firm to cease to exist (Parrino, Kidwell, & Bates, 2012, Ethics Case). The learning team’s discussion surrounded the blatant conflict of interest, greed and the breach of fiduciary duties of the firm to provide objective evaluation of
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Ethics Case: Arthur Andersen’s Troubles Once the largest professional services firm in the world, and arguably the most respected, Arthur Andersen LLP (AA) has disappeared. The Big 5 accounting firms are now the Big 4. Why did this happen? How did it happen? What are the lessons to be learned? Arthur Andersen, a twenty-eight-year-old Northwestern University accounting professor, co-founded the firm in 1913. Tales of his integrity are legendary, and the culture of the firm was very much in his image
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Contrary to some belief, accounting is not a “walk-in-the-park” career. Accountants do not sit at a desk one-hundred percent of the time crunching numbers that always add up perfectly. In fact, accounting fraud is one of the largest scandals found today. When an accountant enters an engagement with a client, who are they liable to? Certainly not just to the client, but also anyone who could negatively be affected by a material misstatement, as well as the government. These responsibilities are
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Case Study: Enron Corporation and Andersen LLP Enron was one of the biggest companies, in the industry of electricity, natural gas, and paper manufacturing. The Company's revenues in 2000 were 111 billion, which made Fortune magazine Comrade crowned her the most innovative in the United States for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001, the company declared bankruptcy with approximately -65.5 billion dollar in debt and the company’s share price fell within a few weeks from a high of nearly ninety
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Case Accenture Accenture began in 1942 as Administrative Accounting Group, the consulting arm of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. In 1989, it launched as a separate business unit focused on IT consulting and bearing the name Andersen Consulting. At that time, though it was earning $1 billion annually, Andersen Consulting had low brand awareness among information technology consultancies and was commonly mistaken for its accounting corporate parent. To build its brand and separate itself from the
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than 40% in 2004 to 50% 2007 and still rising” (Wheelan, 2010 p. 74). The author of this paper will discuss how the role of ethics and social responsibility will effective stakeholders and society. In addition, the author will discuss how the Arthur Andersen Corporation overstepped their ethical boundaries to their stakeholders. Ethics and Social Responsibilities Ethics spells out the important in order to achieve a specific result within the organization in existing or occurring issues. Moreover
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compliance (from Chapter 4) and determine which requirements apply to the Arthur Anderson case. Then we will discuss how the issues with the Arthur Anderson case may have played out differently if the Sarbanes-Oxley Act had been enacted in 1999. Next we will determine and discuss which elements of the framework for ethical decision making in business (from Chapter 5) played the biggest role in the Anderson case. Explain your reasoning. Lastly, we will discuss how the situations at Arthur Anderson may
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The Rise and Fall of Arthur Andersen LLP In October 2001, Enron was accused of overstating their earnings in the last few years in excess of $1 billion dollars (Doost, 2001). At the same time, Arthur Andersen, one of the most reputable auditing firms, was responsible for auditing Enron’s financial statements. The Security Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered Arthur Andersen to provide all relevant Enron documentation and auditing files. Going against Arthur Andersen’s impeccable reputation of honesty
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Case analysis 3 Chao Yao Major case 1 Adelphia Communications Corporation 1. What are the facts? In September 2005, the SEC charged Dearlove, a certified public accountant and formerly a partner with the accounting firm Deloitte& Touche LLP, with the improper conduct resulting in a violation of applicable professional standards. On July 24, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia supported the finding of the SEC that Dearlove engaged improper professional conduct
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whether fraud has actually occurred. Fraud involving one or more members of management or those charged with governance is referred to as “management fraud”; fraud involving only employees of the entity is referred to as “employee fraud”. In either case, there may be collusion with third parties outside the entity. * Two types of intentional misstatements are relevant to the auditor’s consideration of fraud misstatements resulting from fraudulent financial
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