Ouch…that’s gotta hurt. United States attorneys are scrambling to build a case against Richard “Dick” Fuld and the Lehman giant that he sunk.
I think this is just the start of a series of investigations and hopefully charges that will be brought against these a-holes that took us to the edge of an economic black hole.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Did you see the actual language PWC used in their finding? I saw an excerpt on CSPAN. I was stunned. I cannot fathom how that got into writing, meaning, a finding like that would be well telgraphed and heavily discussed. I can’t find the excerpt now but I’ll keep looking for it.
I would find it hard to believe Mr. Fuld did not have prior notice of that pending finding. And yet he pushed ahead, that’s the part that fascinates me. I recall a story of how the priests used to tie a rope around their legs before going into the Temple so their impure bodies could be pulled out and buried in case they were unworthy… If I were the PWC guy delivering that finding, I would have wanted a similar rope.
semi-aside, are you up on the EDGAR database system the SEC uses? I think we should *require* audit firms to post alerts directly into that system within 24 / 48 hours of issuing them when they either issue a report on a traded company or an alert (a potentially negative report), bypassing SEC bottlenecks (1 person on the risk management / compliance team? come on guys!). A lot of people may have gotten interested sooner in a scenario like this.