Enron's Arthur Andersen Problem: When Auditors Enable Fraud

Arthur Andersen was supposed to be the firm that never blinked. But inside Enron’s rise, the watchdog was getting too close to the kennel. And once the questions started, the paper trail would become the real battleground.By the time Enron became a scandal, Arthur Andersen had already spent nearly a century building a reputation for restraint. The firm began in nineteen thirteen in Chicago with a simple promise: audits should be independent, skeptical, and boring. That was the point. Numbers were supposed to be trusted because the auditor had no reason to flatter the client. But by the early two thousands, that ideal had been bent by size, money, and ambition. Andersen was one of the Big Five accounting firms, and it had become more than an auditor. It was also a business adviser with a sprawling consulting culture.Aurelius and Malik take on this case in full — 5 chapters, 33 minutes, one complete story.Learn more at: https://thefraudarchive.com/fraud/arthur-andersen The Fraud Archive Dialogues is part of The Archive Network by Jonkai Ventures. In every episode, curators Aurelius and Malik take one case of fraud, deception or financial crime and work through it together — one building the account, the other pressing on what it leaves out. The Archive Network is an independent project. Everything is free, with no ads and no paywalls. Support doesn't unlock anything; it simply keeps the work going: https://thearchivenetwork.com/support Explore this archive: https://thefraudarchive.com Discover more archives and stories: https://thearchivenetwork.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.