LeBow College professor of finance David Becher was quoted in a Reuters article about problems at Huron Consulting Group Inc., a global consulting company that rose from the ashes of destroyed accounting firm Arthur Andersen. This story was picked up by many media outlets, including Forbes, The New York Times, MSN Money, and BusinessWeek.
The scandal could turn out to be a misunderstanding or a “colossal mistake,” said Becher, who is also a fellow at LeBow’s Center for Corporate Governance. But the fact that senior Huron executives resigned may lead to concerns that executives were trying to manipulate earnings by making it seem like they paid less then they really did for the companies they acquired, he said. “They bill themselves as (experts who) help people get through these difficult regulatory environment post-Sarbanes Oxley,” said Becher, in reference to the corporate governance and accounting law passed after the Enron scandal. “You’d think they would know.”