Arthur Andersen
| Arthur Andersen LLP
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | LLP |
| founding | 1913 |
| Seat | Chicago , Illinois |
| Branch | Auditing |
| Website | www.andersen.com |
Arthur Andersen LLP was one of the Big Five audit firms , providing auditing , tax advisory and business advisory services . The headquarters were in Chicago , Illinois . Because of its involvement in the Enron scandal, the company was no longer active in 2002, and the independent national companies subsequently merged with various competitors .
history
founding
Arthur Andersen was founded in 1913 by Arthur E. Andersen and Clarence DeLany as Andersen, DeLany & Co. Andersen was then a professor of corporate accounting at Northwestern University . In 1918 the company changed its name to Arthur Andersen & Co. Arthur Andersen's first client was the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company .
The company opened its first office in Germany in 1960. 42 years later, in 2002, Arthur Andersen Germany had 3,800 employees at ten locations, most recently with headquarters in Kronberg im Taunus .
Enron scandal
As a result of its involvement in the Enron scandal in 2002, the company voluntarily ceased operations for the duration of the criminal proceedings. Based on instructions from company lawyer Nancy Temple and David Duncan (head of the Andersen office in Houston ), documents of the Enron group were destroyed, although the employees of Arthur Andersen had already been informed of the start of an SEC investigation against Enron. A jury in Houston therefore found the company guilty of obstruction of justice. This conviction would have resulted in the revocation of the CPA licenses. However, this judgment was overturned on June 1, 2005 by the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC .
resolution
Shortly after the verdict, the individual national companies separated from the global Andersen organization and merged with different companies, most of which were part of today's Big Four . In Germany, most of the company merged with Ernst & Young .
The German Financial & Commodity Risk (FCRC) division was merged into the newly founded company d-fine GmbH and AABC (Arthur Andersen Business Consulting ) was sold to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Consulting. The AABC v. a. with Hitachi Consulting and KPMG Consulting (later BearingPoint ); in South Africa there was a complete affiliation with KPMG .
Brand name revival
In September 2014, the tax consultancy Wealth & Tax Advisory Services from San Francisco , operated by 23 former Arthur Andersen partners, announced that it had acquired the rights to the name of the “Arthur Andersen” brand and from then on appeared in the market as Andersen Tax .
Connection to Accenture
Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting were independent companies under the joint holding company Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative (AWSC) . In 2000 Andersen Consulting achieved the desired separation of Andersen Worldwide and Arthur Andersen by winning an arbitration award from the International Chamber of Commerce . As a result of the split, Andersen Consulting was forced to stop using the Andersen name portion, which they did on January 1, 2001. The new company has been called Accenture since then .
See also
Web links
- The company's homepage (English)
- Indictment of US v. Arthur Andersen, LLP.
- Copy of Andersen attorney Nancy Temple's e-mail
Individual evidence
- ↑ online.wsj.com: "Tax Firm to Revive Arthur Andersen Name" (accessed November 24, 2014)