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Full-Text Articles in Law
Enron, Accounting, And Lawyers, Matthew J. Barrett
Enron, Accounting, And Lawyers, Matthew J. Barrett
Journal Articles
Enron's collapse painfully illustrates the importance of financial accounting to all lawyers. Accounting is often referred to as "the language of business." Virtually every lawyer represents businesses, their owners, or clients with adverse legal interests, such as creditors and customers. Especially after Enron, lawyers cannot competently represent clients if they do not grasp certain basic principles about accounting. This article lists the top ten accounting lessons that any lawyer could learn from the scandal. These lessons include the components of a complete set of financial statements, the choices inherent in generally accepted accounting principles, the distortions possible in pro forma …
Even Before Enron: Banking Regulators, The Income Tax, The S&L Crisis, And Deceptive Accounting At The Supreme Court, Stephen B. Cohen
Even Before Enron: Banking Regulators, The Income Tax, The S&L Crisis, And Deceptive Accounting At The Supreme Court, Stephen B. Cohen
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Years before the ENRON debacle, the Supreme Court heard a pair of cases involving dishonest financial accounting, Frank Lyon Co. v. U.S. and Cottage Savings Ass'n. v. Commissioner. In both cases, federal bank regulators had encouraged deceptive financial accounting, and the deceptive accounting became the basis for taxpayer claims. The Supreme Court, however, did not comment in either opinion on the deceptive character of the financial accounting that gave rise to tax litigation.