Smoking Gun Memo Survives Shredder
Instructor Discussion Notes
Discussion Notes
1. Answers will vary. However, since it was Duncan who actually oversaw the destruction of the Enron documents, he may have been motivated to make the best deal he could with prosecutors before others stepped up to make their own deals, thereby limiting his legal options.
2. Answers will vary. However, it appears that Duncan may have feared he would be made a scapegoat and, therefore, he acted to protect himself by retaining key pieces of information that could be used to make a deal for himself with the Justice Department.
3. Answers will vary. You may want to lead a discussion on the motivation factors involved for each group of Andersen employees. Andersen supervisors in Chicago and Houston may have been simply reminding Duncan that there was a policy in place to destroy non-essential working papers in order to protect client confidentiality and save storage space. But why issue the “reminder” about this particular company at this particular time and in such an unclear manner?