Supreme Court overturns Arthur Anderson conviction

By Hope Yen
Associated Press
Published May 31, 2005, 9:55 AM CDT

In a unanimous opinion, justices said the former Big Five accounting firm’s June 2002 obstruction-of-justice conviction – which virtually destroyed Andersen – was improper. The decision said jury instructions at trial were too vague and broad for jurors to determine correctly whether Andersen obstructed justice.

“The jury instructions here were flawed in important respects,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.

[…]

A ruling against Andersen would have had onerous consequences for businesses, whose discarding of files is an everyday occurrence. Experts say companies would have to keep all files for fear that any disposal, however innocent, could subject them to potential prosecution.

According to Andersen attorneys, notes and drafts of documents were thrown away under the firm’s document-retention policy in part because they were preliminary and could have been misconstrued.

Andersen’s appeal was backed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It argued in a friend-of-the-court filing that broad characterization of “obstruction” used in the jury instructions would also unfairly punish criminal attorneys who advise their clients to withhold evidence in legal ways.

Such a broad reading could open defense lawyers and others to prosecution if they merely advise clients of their rights to assert legal privileges or review document retention policies, the criminal defense group said.

The case is Andersen v. U.S., 04-368.

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Gov’t Defends Arthur Anderson Prosecution
April 28, 2005 (Associated Press)

Most of Andersen’s 28,000 workers moved to other accounting firms; its U.S. operations now have fewer than 200 Chicago-based employees, who largely handle lawsuits.

On Tuesday, Andersen paid $65 million to settle another case, that of telecommunications company WorldCom, where regulators said Andersen should have sniffed out $11 billion in accounting fraud, the largest in U.S. history.

The Supreme Court fight is an effort that, if successful, will help shield the former partners at Andersen from any possible future litigation, according to Paul R. Brown, professor of accounting at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Arthur Anderson was also the accounting firm for Qwest, Halliburton, and Harken Energy.

“A recently filed suit alleges that Mr. Cheney conspired, along with others at Halliburton, to file false financial statements and thereby mislead investors. The suit claims Halliburton’s deceptive accounting procedures led to overstatements of revenue amounting to as much as $445 million in a three-year period during Mr. Cheney’s tenure as CEO.”

Huck Gutman
July 14, 2002

But that has nothing to do with the decision, certainly.

Accenture is the new name for Andersen Consulting, which broke away from Arthur Andersen in 2000, after a longstanding feud. The change to Accenture was the fastest, most expensive re-branding effort in history as everything was changed to fit the new logo in a matter of days. It is Arthur Andersen that is in so much legal trouble for allowing Enron to cook their books and destroying Enron’s documents as Enron collapsed. While Accenture states that because it is no longer tied to Andersen it is not implicated in the Andersen/Enron scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported that Accenture might have some legal exposure to the Enron scandal, especially if Accenture had anything to do with consulting for Enron’s ‘special-purpose entities’ which were among the main players in Enron’s collapse. (pdf)

According to DonnaQuixote, 2/15/04:

Accenture: Gov. Jeb Bush hired this company (who took its offices out of the U.S. so U.S. laws don’t apply to them and they don’t have to pay U.S. taxes) to produce a computer and communications’ service.

The consulting firm that broke away from the crumbling Andersen Worldwide empire in 2000 is paring its payroll in Houston (Arthur Anderson who reportedly destroyed documents in the Enron scandal). Accenture, which lists Bermuda as the company’s corporate home, broke away from parent company Andersen Worldwide in 2000. Accenture’s job is to privatize government and outsource the jobs to private companies (aka Bush pals). The company has had serious problems in OH, NY and Ontario.

Allegedly, Accenture was paid 90 million for the Business & Professional Regulation contract, gets paid $10,000 for each government worker the company can rid and will be the only company that could maintain and keep this program running!

Offshore Company Captures Online Military Vote
Opinion: www.ecotalk.org
by Lynn Landes
7/16/03

Last year, while President Bush marshaled U.S. forces for the invasion of Iraq, the patriots at the Department of Defense awarded the contract for a new online voting system for the military… to an offshore company.

It gets worse.

Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) is the system and Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting of Enron bankruptcy fame) is the company. And although Accenture has not been officially implicated in the Enron scandal, they have created a reputation of their own that is already raising eyebrows.

This is hot off the newswire — “7/15/03 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) — Accenture Ltd., the former Andersen Consulting, disclosed Tuesday that it might have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Chairman and CEO Joe Forehand, on an earnings call with analysts and reporters Tuesday, said the consulting firm’s Middle East operations could be in non-compliance with the Act, which prohibits the bribery of foreign government officials by U.S. persons.”

The Canada-based Polaris Institute published a scathing report on Accenture, saying, “Accenture’s efforts in government outsourcing have often been very expensive and/or of poor quality. There is good reason to question Accenture’s track record in outsourcing of government services.”

Accenture is the leading offshore beneficiary of government contracts whose main business is the privatization of government services, according to Lee Drutman of Citizen Works, a non-profit founded by Ralph Nader. Accenture has a troubling track record, a close business relationship with Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, and 2500 partners – more than half are not U.S. citizens.

Since 2001 Accenture and Election.com have been strategic partners “to jointly deliver comprehensive election solutions to governments worldwide,” according to their press release. Last month Accenture bought the public-sector election assets of Election.com, which suffered its own scandal this year when it was discovered that Osan Ltd, a firm of Saudi and other foreign investors, bought controlling interest in it. According to Mark Harrington of NewsDay.com, “Several shareholders of the company said they were surprised by the recent buyout and have asked for securities regulators to investigate.”

Election.com has had other problems. In January 2003, during Canada’s New Democratic Party leadership convention, the Canadian Broadcasting System reported, “Earl Hurd of Election.com said he believes someone used a “denial of service” program to disrupt the voting – paralyzing the central computer by bombarding it with a stream of data”…service was restored, then… “Toronto city councilor Jack Layton’s victory on the first ballot surprised many, who had expected a second or even third round of voting before a leader was chosen from the pack of six candidates.”

For election security experts, a strong and growing suspicion is that computer glitches or disruptions are actually vote rigging. A surprise election result should raise a red flag.

Accenture is big. It has more than 75,000 employees in 47 countries, and generated net revenues of $11.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2002. On their Board of Directors is Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO and known to many as Bad Boy Ballmer for his ruthless, if not illegal, business practices. Microsoft has been sued by the federal government and several states for monopolistic business practices which were designed to destroy their competition. Massachusetts’s Attorney General is still pursuing Microsoft. In March 13, 2000 Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and Microsoft signed a “$1 Billion Pact To Form Joint Venture and Expand Global Alliance.” What’s the alliance? To control voting systems around the world?

A sense of civic duty isn’t high on Accenture’s list of priorities. According to an article last year in TheDailyEnron.com, “Accenture is lobbying furiously on Capitol Hill to defeat a measure that would deny federal contracts to US companies that move offshore to escape US taxes. Accenture, you see, has incorporated in Bermuda. But, Accenture also holds nearly $1 billion in government contracts in the US. The company earned nearly $700 million last year working for Uncle Sam and – ironically – is currently under contract with the Internal Revenue Service itself to redesign its online and Internet operations.”

Then there’s the Accenture connection to Halliburton, vice president Dick Cheney’s former employer. Halliburton is widely criticized for doing business with brutal regimes and was the subject of a SEC investigation and several lawsuits surrounding their accounting practices during and after Cheney’s tenure at the helm. The Polaris Institute says that in July 2000 David Lesar succeeded Dick Cheney as Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company. Before joining Halliburton, Lesar was employed by the Arthur Andersen, Accenture’s former parent company. Polaris says, “…while defending Halliburton’s accounting practices, David Lesar publicly acknowledged that Cheney knew about the firm’s accounting practices…”

In an October 2001 press release, Halliburton and Accenture announced a major expansion of their longstanding relationship with the signing of an alliance between Accenture and Landmark Graphics Corporation, a wholly owned business unit of Halliburton.

And unlike the words of the U.S. military’s anthem, “I’m proud to be an American”, Accenture owes its allegiance to “partners” outside of the USA.

In a letter to the editor of the Austin Chronicle last year, Accenture’s Director of Corporate Communications, Roxanne Taylor wrote, “When Accenture’s parent company, Accenture Ltd., was first incorporated last year, the organization’s 2,500 partners, more than half of whom are non-U.S. citizens, decided to incorporate in Bermuda. With thousands of partners and employees of many nationalities, it was important commercially and culturally for the organization to select a neutral location such as Bermuda for its parent company.”

How very global of them.

Potentially, 6 million U.S. military and civilian voters could soon be using the military’s new online voting system. According to computer voting security experts, any online system will be easy to rig by company insiders and vulnerable to attack by outsiders. Apart from that reality, does the U.S. military really want a company owned by non-U.S. citizens in charge of their vote?

Can anyone at the Pentagon spell “national security”?

– Lynn Landes is a freelance journalist at http://EcoTalk.org. Formerly Lynn was a radio show host, a regular commentator for a BBC radio program, and environmental news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia, PA. (215) 629-3553 / lynnlandes@earthlink.net

via (Black Voter Network)

My Note:

Election.com is now known as Accenture eDemocracy Services. Almost as funny as TheDailyEnron.com domain being taken over by this guy, apparently, who’s using it to sell sex toys. “Screw or get screwed.” Such clever people.