Arthur Andersen

Eager to please WorldCom Inc. executives and line its pockets, auditing firm Arthur Andersen failed investors by missing the enormous fraud unfolding at the big telecom company, a lawyer for investors said Tuesday. Lawyer Sean Coffey, delivering his opening statement on behalf of investors who lost billions of dollars in the collapse of WorldCom, said Andersen amounted to "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil auditors."

Ex-WorldCom Inc. Chairman Bernard J. Ebbers began his defense to federal fraud charges Wednesday by showing that auditor Arthur Andersen didn't detect the $11-billion fraud that helped drive the long-distance company into bankruptcy. Defense lawyers called their first witness after the government rested after 17 days of trial. Cynthia Cooper, who headed WorldCom's internal auditing unit, told the jury of seven women and five men in U.S.

Five former executives at Arthur Andersen, including former in-house counsel Nancy Temple, won't face a lawsuit brought by Enron Corp. shareholders seeking $26 billion in damages. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon on Tuesday threw out claims against the former employees of Andersen, which was the world's fifth-largest accounting firm until its role in the Enron bankruptcy filing led to an exodus of customers and a criminal conviction. The judge let claims against 13 others stand.

Did all the ex-Enron and Arthur Andersen accountants end up with jobs in major league baseball? The Colorado Rockies trade Mike Hampton to Florida, which trades him to Atlanta without even the courtesy photo in the new Marlin jersey. I get it this far, but then it gets murky. Over the next three seasons, Colorado will pay Hampton $6.5 million to pitch for Atlanta; Florida will pay Hampton $23.5 million to pitch for Atlanta; Atlanta will pay Hampton $5.5 million to pitch. What is wrong with this math?

HOUSTON -- Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm once revered for its commitment to integrity, was sentenced to the maximum $500,000 fine and five years' probation Wednesday for obstructing a federal inquiry into the collapse of former client Enron Corp. The Chicago-based accounting giant had previously surrendered its licenses to audit financial statements and retains fewer than 1,000 U.S. employees, down from 28,000 before the obstruction charge.

Software maker Peregrine Systems Inc. is taking what legal experts say is an unusual approach to the financial woes that landed it in Bankruptcy Court: blaming the auditors for letting management get away with faulty accounting. In a lawsuit filed Monday against Arthur Andersen, the San Diego company acknowledges that its accounting methods were flawed. But Peregrine accuses Andersen of fraud, negligence and failure in the performance of its auditing and accounting duties.

After months of struggling to shed its financial and legal woes, San Diego-based software company Peregrine Systems Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday and said it would sue accounting firm Arthur Andersen for more than $250 million. Peregrine--whose chairman is John J. Moores, owner of the San Diego Padres--blames its failure on Arthur Andersen, which it accuses of engaging in fraud, corporate negligence and failure in its auditing and accounting duties.

ENERGY * Enron Corp.'s creditors won permission to sue accounting firm Arthur Andersen to recover $10 million the energy company paid its former auditor in the weeks before filing for bankruptcy protection. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez approved the request by Enron's creditors' committee to sue Andersen. The suit would be the creditor panel's first bid to undo thousands of transactions involving billions of dollars in transfers Enron made prior to seeking bankruptcy protection.

Like the party guest who leaves long after the festivities have ended, Arthur Andersen officially exits the public accounting business today, leaving a shell of a company that was once an industry icon. With its client base and its sterling reputation now just visions in the rear-view mirror, the first major accounting firm to be convicted of a felony hangs on in skeletal form, its global network that once boasted 85,000 employees reduced largely to mop-up crews in a few offices.