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Another Andersen memo found
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January 24, 2002: 4:22 p.m. ET
E-mail shows that staffers told to work overtime to ensure Andersen in compliance.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Congressional investigators produced another smoking-gun memo Thursday that implies Andersen LLP executives shredded Enron Corp. documents at a rabid pace and were urged to work overtime if necessary to complete this "initiative."
Rep. James Greenwood (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee, held up the memo after a hearing which featured Andersen executives.
The Oct. 24 e-mail, from employee Kimberly Latham, tells Andersen staffers of measures to ensure that "the team" is in compliance with the firm's document retention guidelines. Fired Andersen auditor David Duncan held a meeting the prior day, Oct. 23, where he initiated the destruction of Enron-related documents, the accounting firm said.
He has said, he did so after receiving an e-mail from in-house counsel Nancy Temple, who reminded him of Andersen's "document retention policy."
Latham is a manager who worked for Duncan in Andersen's Houston office, an Andersen spokesman said late Thursday.
"This is further evidence that points to David Duncan's large scale document destruction effort," the Andersen spokesman said.
However, Duncan's name does not appear as part of the group receiving the Oct. 24 e-mail.
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Rep. James Greenwood (R-Pa.)
Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce oversight committee questions fired Enron auditor David Duncan. | |
The Latham e-mail, addressed directly to nine Andersen staff members, implies that Andersen ordered staff to ensure that documents—which include "notes, folders, personal hard drives, network current year project folders, prior year project folders," and other files — be in compliance.
The Latham e-mail said all addressed should make themselves familiar with their company's document retention guidelines and that another employee, "Chad," would be contacting staffers to determine where they stand on compliance.
"Chad is going to take responsibility for our team in this initiative and I expect each of you to take ownership for your piece of this," Latham wrote.
"... We do expect that people will be able to do this on an overtime basis, if necessary, for the remainder of this week, or for however long it takes for each of you to be comfortable that TRC is in compliance (this includes folders for people that are no longer on our team)," Latham wrote.
Another e-mail, produced by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, from the prior day, Oct. 23, shows that Enron managers were called to a 1:30 p.m. meeting "to discuss the current events of Enron." 
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