Shredding A Habit At Andersen

James Hacker, a partner of Andersen's energy division in Houston, Texas, confirmed that it was not unusual for paper to pile up 20 feet high before a clean-up was ordered. He said that accounting work did result in the generation of a lot of paper, much of which was unimportant. He confirmed that :'there was a lot of chaff with the wheat, I assure you.'

The firm is accused of destroying documents last year that it feared would prove neglience on its part in respect of its Enron audit work. Andersen claims that it routinely destroyed the documents in the ordinary course of business and that any 'nefarious' document shredding was the work of 'rogue employees', for whom it should not be responsible.

David Duncan is one of these so-called 'rogue employees.' He is a former partner of the firm and worked on the Enron audit. He pleaded guilty last month to obstruction of justice and agreed to cooperate with prosecutirs. He claimed that he shredded papers and deleted e-mails at the behest of his bosses.