192
Souter, J., dissenting
it repeatedly made choices calling for the exercise of a judgment that belonged to the Co-op's management in the first instance.
Arthur Young realized it could not rely on White Flame's 1980 financial statement, which had been prepared by a convicted felon (who also happened to be the Co-op's former accountant),4 see Arthur Young & Co. v. Reves, 937 F. 2d 1310, 1316-1317 (CA8 1991), and an internal memo that appears in the record shows that Arthur Young had a number of serious questions about White Flame's cost figures for the plant. See App. in No. 87-1726, supra, at 1189-1191. Nonetheless, Arthur Young "essentially invented" a cost figure that matched, to the penny, the phoney figure that Kuykendall, White Flame's convicted accountant, had created. App. 138-140. With this "invented" cost figure in hand, Arthur Young then proceeded to decide, again without consulting management, when the Co-op had acquired White Flame. Although the Co-op's 1980 financial statement indicated an acquisition of White Flame in February 1980, as did a local court decree, see App. in No. 87-1726, supra, at 295, 1212- 1214, Arthur Young "adopted a blatant fiction—that the Co-op [had] owned the entire plant at its inception in May, 1979—in order to justify carrying the asset on [the Co-op's] books at its total cost, as if the Co-op had built it from scratch." App. 137. Apparently, the idea that the Co-op had owned the gasohol plant since 1979 was reflected nowhere in the Co-op's books, and Arthur Young was solely
4 Gene Kuykendall, the Co-op's previous "independent auditor," was involved in keeping the Co-op's books in addition to preparing and "auditing" financial statements for White Flame. See Arthur Young & Co. v. Reves, 937 F. 2d 1310, 1316-1317 (CA8 1991); United States v. White, 671 F. 2d 1126 (CA8 1982); Robertson v. White, 633 F. Supp. 954 (WD Ark. 1986). Thus, the Co-op had a history of relying on "outside" auditors for such services.
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