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The NY AG really, REALLY wants to get into the dozens of file cabinets at Trump Towers. Predictably, Trump’s representatives say they would be of no interest to the authorities. Do tell…
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I’m guessing they’re trying to prevent a collapse a la Arthur Andersen if things do go south for the Donald.
Probably a good policy. I was at Andersen shortly before the post-Enron collapse Great Cratering. There are four things we should keep in mind re the Andersen collapse:
First, Andersen’s Technical Standards group acted in an advisory capacity only. The field audit partner (in this case, a 41-year old Dave Duncan, who had been equity partner for just one year on the third-largest audit fee client in the country) could overrule the TS group advice. At all of the other Big Five, the TS findings were mandatory, although at least one of the other Big Five figured out how to circumvent the TS group…but that’s another story.
Secondly, Enron wasn’t Andersen’s only stinker, just the last in a long line of stinkers (MCI Worldcom, Waste Management, Rite Aid, Cendant, Bausch & Lomb, Sunbeam, Superior Bank, Dollar General etc.)
Third, Andersen was ultimately exonerated. The USSC unanimously overturned the Andersen conviction (Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, 125 S. Ct. 2129, 2005 WL 1262915 U.S. May 31, 2005) due to improper jury instructions. Although it didn’t matter, Andersen accountants had scattered to the wind, their savings and retirement accounts taken to satisfy Enron’s shareholders.
Fourth, Andersen lives on. Mark Vorsatz (who I partnered with in the most improbable win of my career) was a tax partner who created Andersen Tax Services in 2002 (now just called Andersen) which is today the largest independent corporate tax specialty firm in the world.
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Shortly before the collapse, I was working on a partnership with Carrier and Enron to provide conditioned air as a service. Interesting concept. That said, the Enron guys were the most arrogant folks I’ve ever come across.
To that point, about five years ago, the head of our Corporate law department asked me if I wanted to host Jeff Fastow (former CFO of Enron, and architect of the disaster), who was on a post-prison apology tour. Fastow also taught a collegiate-level accounting class on footnotes that essentially focused on how CFOs cheat through footnotes…more on that later.
I had done it 20 years earlier with the CEO of ZZZZ Best, and it was very entertaining. I agreed, and Fastow spoke before about 200 CPAs, bankers and lawyers.
Fastow was the most unrepentant “repentant” person I’ve ever seen. The first five minutes and last five minutes were insistent apologies, self-flagellation, “It was so hard to tell my wife that I was going to prison” (It shouldn’t have been that hard, she was an Enron employee who went to prison, too). The middle 50 minutes was a lengthy, circuitous explanation as to why what he did really wasn’t illegal. His biggest laugh line was “No CPA or lawyer ever told me what I did was wrong.”
The peak of his speech was his description of his accounting class main project. He provided his class with a set of redacted financial statements, and the class spent weeks pouring over footnotes that substantially exaggerated the financial health of the underlying entity. The “Big Reveal” is that the financial statements turn out to be those of the university that the students attended.
Upshot: the students are in an uproar, demanding that a firmly worded letter be send to the Trustees and Finance Department demanding that the offending accounting policies be revoked or revised, and the financial statements be restated to conform to generally accepted accounting principles.
Then, Fastow drops the big bomb: if the financial statements are revised, it will cause their individual tuition to increase by $20,000 a year. The students then re-vote and decide to refrain from sending the letter to the BoT and Finance.
So Fastow’s big lesson was that if fresh-faced, innocent college students could act so sleazily in their best interest, what choice did he have but to do the same as the CFO at Enron?
Sleazy, sleazy character.
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Good post.
What exactly are the rules of capitalism and who writes them? You could argue FASBs? I know it’s supposed to be the AICPA but I heard once it used to a guy who worked in Stanford CT and wrote the guidance for Thomson. He was the “translator.”
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Good post. What exactly are the rules of capitalism and who writes them? You could argue FASBs? I know it’s supposed to be the AICPA but I heard once it used to a guy who worked in Stanford CT and wrote the guidance for Thomson. He was the “translator.”
The Financial Accounting Standards Board translates the rules of a five hundred year old system that focuses on the value of hard assets. It uses about 200 variables. The typical analyst of a publicly-traded company uses about 800 variables, inclusive of the 200 financial variables, and tries to convey value based on items that don’t fit onto the balance sheet, income statement or statement of cash flows.
There are other entities; e.g., the SEC. But value races ahead of what is commonly considered reasonable measures of value.
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And then there’s this, top prosecutors in the criminal case against Trump resign. NYC DA has “doubts” about the case. Nothing before the grand jury or witnesses interviewed in awhile. So the criminal case against Trump, his organization, and his family appears to be dead. Yet, NY Attorney General Letitia James pushes on with the civil case. She’s gotta find something to justify all those taxpayer dollars.
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