E&Y just settled the Lehman Brothers class action against them for $99 million. It made little news. The 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy was at least partially caused by accounting malfeasance. This article describes the bankruptcy examiner’s report on this wrongdoing.
Arthur Andersen was entirely destroyed for a bad audit of Enron that was no worse than E&Y’s current situation. Yet, because everyone (including the Supreme Court of the U.S.) acknowledges that Andersen being forced out of business was improper, no one wants to do the same to E&Y. Still, the $99 million settlement is remarkable for how small it is relative to the damage that the improper accounting caused.
