Re: Lots of 'goodwill' lost over those accounting changes

["Charles Jannuzi" <jannuzi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I don't know how many of you might have come across the SEC news release
on
> the Waste Management fraud but I was flabbergasted by the purple prose.
I've
> never seen the phrase "ill-gotten gain" used so many times in a single
> document. See for yourselves

Gotta wonder what took the SEC so long, since all the fraud was obvious a
long time ago. I guess what with the decision to go for full exposure of AA
to show a clean up of the toxic waste in accounting there, they had to.I'm
not convinced it's an AA-only thing, since Waste Management seemed to be
able to coopt the legal professionals from the law firms they hired as
well.

One thing interesting is just how intimately connected Andersen is to the
Waste Management corporate structure (clipped and pasted from the SEC's list
of defendants in the filing):

26. James E. Koenig, age 54, is a resident of Wheaton, Illinois. Koenig was
the former executive vice president and CFO of Waste Management. In January
of 1997, Koenig was stripped of the CFO title because of mounting
shareholder discontent but thereafter continued to have responsibility for
financial, accounting, and reporting matters. Koenig commenced employment
with the Company in July of 1977, first became an officer in 1984, and
resigned on October 29, 1997. Koenig is a certified public accountant. Like
every CFO that preceded him, Koenig was trained as an auditor at Arthur
Andersen. Koenig signed Waste Management's periodic reports on Forms 10-K
and 10-Q and registration statements, as CFO, and participated in making
public statements concerning those reports.

27. Thomas C. Hau, age 66, is a resident of Crown Point, Indiana. Hau was
the vice president and corporate controller and CAO of Waste Management from
September 1990 to October 1997. Hau remained vice president until his
retirement on April 3, 1998. Hau is a certified public accountant. Like
every CAO that preceded him, Hau was trained as an auditor at Arthur
Andersen where he was a partner for thirty years. While at AA, Hau was the
partner in charge of the Waste Management audit from 1976 to 1983 (otherwise
referred to as the "engagement partner") and later became head of the AA
audit division that handled the Waste Management account. Hau was again
slotted to become engagement partner for the Waste Management audit in 1990
but resigned from AA after Buntrock invited him to join Waste Management. As
CAO, he among other things, prepared initial drafts of the financial
statement footnotes and Management's Discussion and Analysis section of the
Company's periodic reports. During all relevant times, Hau signed Waste
Management's annual reports on Form 10-K as the CAO.

29. Bruce D. Tobecksen, age 57, is a resident of The Woodlands, Texas.
Tobecksen was the vice president of finance until December of 1997, when he
was asked to leave by the new CFO of Waste Management. Prior to holding that
position, from 1987 to February of 1993, Tobecksen was CFO of Chemical Waste
Management, Inc., a subsidiary of Waste Management. Tobecksen is a certified
public accountant. Before joining Waste Management in 1979, he worked as an
audit manager at AA and during a portion of that time, worked on the Waste
Management audit. Tobecksen participated in the preparation of the
consolidated financial statements and disclosures included in the Company's
periodic reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q.

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C. Jannuzi