Business Law I Case Study Arthur Andersen Llp V. United States

Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States The parties In Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, the plaintiff was the United States. The United States was also the Appellee. Arthur Andersen is the defendant as well as the appellant. The history Arthur Andersen was found guilty at the control panel trial. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also affirmed him guilty. The U. S. Supreme Court reverse Andersens disapprobations due to flawed jury instructions. The facts Arthur Anderson formed a crisis-response team briefly after the Wall Street Journal had suggested the issues at Enron.The company unbroken encouraging the employees to follow Andersens document retention policy and Odom verbalize that If documents are destroyed in the course of the normal policy and litigation is filed the succeeding(prenominal) day, thats great Weve followed our own policy, and whatever thither was that might tolerate been of interest to somebody is g star and irretrievable. As Enron went u nder the heat of cozy to formal investigation with requests for documentation, the company kept encouraging its employees to follow the policy. It wasnt until the SEC served Enron and Andersen with subpoenas for records that they told their employees to stop shredding and the game was over. The plaintiffs theory The jury and Court of Appeals found that the above actions made the petitioner guilty of violating designation 18 of the United States Code that provides criminal sanctions for those who obstruct justice. They believed he advisedly had the knowledge of what was going on and intentionally destroyed the documents that proved the grime to be true.The defendants theory Arthur Anderson believed that he was only following his companys policy by ensuring it was being followed. He did non violate a law because once he was served the subpoena, the document shredding halted immediately. The court-ordered issue Did Arthur Anderson violate Title 18 of the United States Code by know ingly persuading his employees to shred documents with intent to impair the availability of those documents for use in an official proceeding?The holding of the court No. Andersens conviction could not withstand due to the flawed jury instructions. Therefore, the conviction was reversed by the U. S. Supreme Court. Personal opinion I do not believe this case was correctly decided. However, there was not enough licence to convict him. The Supreme Court ruled the right decision found on the books. It is obviously clear that the Arthur Andersen was a smart man. Once he got tick in his ear that there might be trouble, he quickly found a way to legally protect himself and the company. I find it interesting how persistent they were with the document policy. However, regardless of the perception it gives off, Andersen technically did not violate any laws according to the court. If he was guilty, no one would ever know. Im sure if the subpoena would have been served sooner, there would ha ve been a different outcome. But, this is only my opinion and it would not stand in the court system.