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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice. That's why they went out of business. The market didn't correct this inefficiency all by its lonesome. The legal system prosecuted this crime.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1023469305374958120

And FWIW, that conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

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AA's conviction does not put them out of business.

AA's loss of customers put them out of business.

That said - they may possibly have lost their legal ability to sign off on books, in which case, that could have done it, but even if they didn't, customers would run for the hills.

There are handful of 'big accounting firms' that are basically the same. Why use the one that is criminal when you can use the next one over for the same price that is not? The whole point of AA is integrity of being an 'independent' auditor. If they don't have that, they don't have anything to sell, so no customers.

Anderson had been the accountant for Waste Management and Sunbeam. They'd been fined for those cases and they expected to be fined again for Enron. Cost of doing business. They didn't lose their customers because of those cases. They lost customers with Enron because they were convicted.

And they went out of business costing 10s of thousands of jobs.

Not sure if you realize this but Arthur Andersen "the company" was convicted, not some individual named Arthur Andersen. The discussion was about whether individuals would get prosecuted or if there are personal qualifies which allow some people to escape criminal prosecution.

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