The New York Times
January 8, 2005
Supreme Court Will Review Conviction of Arthur Andersen
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would review the criminal conviction that drove Arthur Andersen, the once-prominent accounting firm, out of business.
Over the objections of the Justice Department, the court will consider whether Andersen's prosecution for obstruction of justice - growing out of its extensive shredding of documents related to its major client, Enron - was a proper application of the federal witness-tampering statute, which the firm was charged with violating.
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Andersen was convicted of violating a 1988 federal law, a part of the Victim and Witness Protection Act that makes it a crime if a person "corruptly persuades" someone else to "alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal" a document or other object, with the intent to make it unavailable "for use in an official proceeding." The focus of the appeal is on the meaning of the word "corruptly."
<snip>
After its conviction, in June 2002, it shut down its public accounting business. It now has about 200 employees, down from 28,000, many of them lawyers dealing with the fallout from Enron and other legal issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/business/08andersen.html
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