In 2002, the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States after it was found guilty of crimes in the firm's auditing of Enron, an energy corporation based in Texas, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[1] In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed Arthur Andersen's conviction due to serious errors in the trial judge's instructions to the jury that convicted the firm.[2] Despite this, the damage to Andersen's reputation was so great that it has never returned as a viable business even on a limited scale.
The former consultancy and outsourcing practice of the firm separated from the firm's accountancy practice and split from Andersen Worldwide in 2000, when it rebranded to Accenture, as it continues to operate.
The indictment also put a spotlight on the firm's faulty audits of other companies, most notably Waste Management, Inc., Sunbeam Products, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona and WorldCom. The subsequent bankruptcy of WorldCom, which quickly surpassed Enron as the biggest bankruptcy in history (and has since been passed by the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and WaMu in the financial crisis of 2007–2008) led to a domino effect of accounting and corporate scandals.
