Enron Revisited as High Court Reviews Whistle-Blower Shield
Source: Bloomberg News
The U.S. Supreme Court revisited the Enron Corp. collapse as the justices debated whether whistle-blower protections in a 2002 law cover employees of auditors, law firms and other advisers to publicly traded companies.
Hearing arguments today in the case of two former mutual-fund industry workers, the justices tried to sort out a law that represented Congress’s response to the accounting fraud behind Enron’s 2001 failure. The fast-paced session was laced with questions about a hypothetical butler working for the late Kenneth Lay, who was Enron’s chairman, and the role of the company’s accounting firm, Arthur Andersen LLP.
The case will determine the scope of whistle-blower protections that watchdog groups say are important to prevent another Enron-like catastrophe. The dispute pits business groups against President Barack Obama’s administration, which is seeking a broad interpretation of the whistle-blower provision.
Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-11-12/sarbanes-oxley-whistle-blower-shield-scrutinized-by-high-court