Arthur Andersen

THE DEATH sentence came from the marketplace. Boards of directors and company executives were the first jurors: They knew Arthur Andersen had fallen hard. They scattered after the Andersen-assisted collapse of Enron Corp. Last week's conviction of Andersen in Houston only affirmed an earlier judgment. More corporate death may follow. Other companies appear vulnerable to prosecution for similar excesses. A mass cleanup by the courts and federal regulatory agencies now seems overdue. Many innocents have been damaged - some by the loss of a pension or a job, some by falling share prices, some by a general loss of confidence in the stock market.

Alvin Pederson, an accountant with Arthur Andersen for more than 50 years who was managing partner in the company's Baltimore office in the 1970s, died Tuesday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Copper Ridge nursing home in Sykesville. The former Timonium resident was 82. Mr. Pederson grew up on a farm north of Bottineau, N.D., one of nine children in his family. He attended a one-room schoolhouse. He started school without being able to speak English because his family spoke Norwegian at home.

Arthur Andersen LLP is expected to announce this morning plans to expand its downtown offices with a move into an unlikely location -- the Power Plant -- and hire more than 100 employees.The company, which intends to unveil its pending move at Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's weekly press briefing, also intends to establish a regional training facility at the 601 E. Pratt St. building.But in becoming the first office tenant in the $18 million project, which houses the Hard Rock Cafe and ESPN Zone, Arthur Andersen acknowledges that its choice is an unorthodox one."

The Federal Trade Commission's $172 million lawsuit against AmeriDebt founder Andris Pukke could go to trial as early as January, after a federal judge yesterday denied the government's request to rule in its favor without a trial. Also yesterday, Pukke's lawyer informed the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt that his client, whose assets were frozen by the same judge in April, intends to file for bankruptcy court protection soon. That move would not affect the FTC case but would put on hold, as far as Pukke is concerned, a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of consumers against Pukke and others.

Say what you want about Arthur Andersen LLP, the Big Five accounting firm that closed its Baltimore office last month after becoming embroiled in the Enron scandal, but its local partners sure had a flair for design. Andersen's third-level office inside Baltimore's Power Plant was and still is one of the most dramatic, stimulating and superbly renovated workplaces in the city. From the day it opened in August 1999, it was an ideal symbol for Baltimore's "Digital Harbor" - a pioneering waterfront setting that combines the industrial ambience of the 19th century with the high-tech innovations of the 21st.

CHICAGO - The Arthur Andersen LLP accounting firm has not conducted a single audit or prepared a tax return in more than two years, but its legal battle to overturn its criminal conviction lives on. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider whether Andersen broke the law when it destroyed thousands of documents and e-mail messages related to its audit of Enron Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. The justices' acceptance was a victory for Andersen after a Texas federal appeals court upheld the conviction.

The Supreme Court threw out the government's high-profile conviction against Arthur Andersen yesterday, saying in a unanimous and swift decision that jurors relied on flawed instructions in 2002 when they found that the accounting giant had obstructed justice by destroying reams of Enron-related files. The ruling comes too late for the former Big Five accounting firm. Its indictment during the heat of the Enron scandal and its subsequent conviction amounted to what lawyers called a "corporate death sentence."

James T. Brady, mnanaging partner of the Baltimore office of Arthur Andersen & Co., has been named chairman of United Way of Central Maryland's 1991 fund-raising campaign.Brady was deputy chairman of last year's record-setting campaign. He also has chaired the organization's Pacesetter campaign and its Financial Management Division.

WASHINGTON -- The multilayered system of safeguards that was put in place over the years to protect investors and employees from a catastrophic corporate implosion largely failed to detect or address the problems that felled the Enron Corp., say regulators, investors, business executives and scholars. The breakdown in checks and balances encompassed the company's auditors, lawyers and directors and extended to groups monitoring Enron from the outside, such as regulators, financial analysts, credit-rating agencies and Congress, which in the coming week will open a blizzard of hearings into the company's downfall.

LOS ANGELES -- The prolonged slump in commercial real estate has not been a disaster for everyone.Among turnaround experts, property managers and leasing specialists, it's a golden opportunity.The 1980s commercial construction boom, fueled in part by unmet expectations of the incomes that new buildings could produce, has created a large supply of troubled real estate loans and buildings.Turnaround specialists and other consultants who restructure those financially shaky deals say they're finding increased demand for their services.

The Supreme Court threw out the government's high-profile conviction against Arthur Andersen yesterday, saying in a unanimous and swift decision that jurors relied on flawed instructions in 2002 when they found that the accounting giant had obstructed justice by destroying reams of Enron-related files. The ruling comes too late for the former Big Five accounting firm. Its indictment during the heat of the Enron scandal and its subsequent conviction amounted to what lawyers called a "corporate death sentence."

NEW YORK - Former World-Com Inc. chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers, accused of accounting fraud, aims to show jurors that some of the transactions in question didn't amount to a crime, his lawyers said. "We can represent with a virtual certainty that we would be defending the propriety of some of the accounting in this case," said Brian M. Heberlig, one of Ebbers' lawyers, at a final pretrial hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Prosecutors say that one method used by WorldCom to inflate earnings was by making adjustments to the way it accounted for revenue.

CHICAGO - The Arthur Andersen LLP accounting firm has not conducted a single audit or prepared a tax return in more than two years, but its legal battle to overturn its criminal conviction lives on. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider whether Andersen broke the law when it destroyed thousands of documents and e-mail messages related to its audit of Enron Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. The justices' acceptance was a victory for Andersen after a Texas federal appeals court upheld the conviction.

The former top auditor for Nathan A. Chapman Jr.'s company said yesterday that he warned the Baltimore investment banker in 2001 that he had to stop taking checks for expenses he couldn't document. But two days after receiving the warning, Chapman accepted another such "business development" check, evidence introduced at his federal fraud trial showed. Chapman never produced receipts for those expenses or for any of the $172,000 in such payments he took in that year, witnesses said. The charges Chapman is charged with swindling $518,145 from companies he controlled though a scheme under which he allegedly used money from his publicly traded companies for personal expenses, including gifts to mistresses.

"Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires." -- The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527 If there is any truth to the saying that a man's character can be assessed by observing what he reads, then it is easy to understand the current sad state of business ethics in America.

UNTIL BILL Jews' recent comments in our paper, I had started to suspect that he had been in cryogenic sleep when the CareFirst space ship passed planet Enron. I was leaning toward believing that the man had remained in deep sleep during orbits of WorldCom, too. Or maybe he had been engrossed in finding his Tru-Flite after a bad slice at the country club when the Arthur Andersen thing went down. I thought he had missed the public outrage over those financial scandals and the roles that corporate executives played in them.

The following is the text of a statement issued by Arthur Andersen LLP yesterday after a federal jury in Houston convicted the accounting firm of obstruction of justice for trying to thwart a government investigation into the Enron Corp.: Today's verdict is wrong. In fairness to the jury, they were not permitted to know the full truth about what happened last fall as a result of the Justice Department's actions during this trial. Arthur Andersen is planning to appeal the conviction based on flawed jury instructions and erroneous evidentiary rulings that precluded Andersen from presenting its entire defense.

Alvin Pederson, an accountant with Arthur Andersen for more than 50 years who was managing partner in the company's Baltimore office in the 1970s, died Tuesday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Copper Ridge nursing home in Sykesville. The former Timonium resident was 82. Mr. Pederson grew up on a farm north of Bottineau, N.D., one of nine children in his family. He attended a one-room schoolhouse. He started school without being able to speak English because his family spoke Norwegian at home.

NEW YORK - The judge in the fraud suit brought by WorldCom Inc. investors against the bankrupt long-distance phone company's former officers and investment banks, including Citigroup Inc., said yesterday that she will likely allow the case to go forward. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said at a hearing that she was leaning toward upholding almost all the claims by shareholders and bondholders. Cote didn't formally rule on pending motions to dismiss the case. "We want to end this pattern of fraud that has been a characteristic of the last decade," said New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who runs the state employees' retirement fund, the lead plaintiff in the case.

HOUSTON - The network of accounting firms outside the United States linked to Arthur Andersen LLP will pay $60 million in the first settlement of lawsuits stemming from the collapse of Enron Corp., people familiar with the agreement told Bloomberg News yesterday. The settlement by Andersen Worldwide SC is an outgrowth of consolidated suits filed in federal court in Houston this year by Enron investors and former workers. It's a fraction of the $29 billion in losses the plaintiffs say they suffered when the energy trader filed for bankruptcy in December after losing $68 billion in market value.