安然事件视阈下完善公司律师伦理的多个面向

Multiple Revisiting Legal Ethics of Corporate Lawyers under the Enron Incident

安然事件是影响广泛而深远的商业丑闻,是当年美国最大破产案。安然公司多位高管因不法行为被定罪,这是出台《萨班斯法案》及公司治理制度重大演变的主要推动力。《安然事件:公司溃败及其意义》不同于将重心放在涉及安然事件人员的其他文献,更侧重从商业、金融、法律、职业伦理等方面进行分析,角度独特,而职业伦理是审视安然事件的跨学科视角。安然公司法务、外聘律师、埃尔金斯律师事务所和安达信公司法务的不当职业行为均值得审视。通过剖析安然事件律师不当职业行为,可以反思公司律师伦理所面对的挑战,思考公司律师职业标准、信息披露义务界限等多面向问题,从而完善公司律师伦理体系。

The Enron incident was the most far-reaching scandal and the biggest bankruptcy case in the US history.The Enron Scandal was the prominent driving force pushing the evolution of corporate governance,including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and corporate responsibility,as several senior management of the Enron were convicted of misconduct.The book,namely Enron:Corporate Fiascos and Their Implication,which is different from other books that merely concentrate on the Enron case and related individuals,analyses the Enron Scandal via business,flnance,law,and legal ethics and provides very comprehensive insights.Legal ethics,as an interdisciplinary subject,is a very essential way to rethink the Enron case.The professional conducts of Enron’s corporate lawyers,external lawyers,Vinson&Elkins LLP and Arthur Andersen’s lawyers are deserved to be discussed.By way of analyzing lawyers’misconduct in the Enron case,it is helpful to reconsider the challenges faced by legal ethics of corporate lawyers,revisit the standards of legal ethics of corporate lawyers,and flnd out the boundary of information disclosure obligation etc.,so as to optimize legal ethics of corporate lawyers.