Cheney Sued for Fraudulent Accounting Practices

Vice President, Dick Cheney was sued involved in a stir of accounting irregularity.

On Wednesday, the Watchdog group called as ‘Judicial Watch’ sued Cheney who was a former CEO of Halliburton (HAL.N) oil services company and executives of Arthur Andersen which was the its accounting firm to the federal local court of Dallas, Texas, alleging fraudulent accounting practices.

The company overstated revenues by as much as $445 million which customers didn’t pay for the long-term construction expenses over three years from 1999to 2001. So, due to this wrong information, shareholders who invested to the company’s securities had enormous losses. Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.

Since the New York Times firstly reported the news of fraudulent accounting practices, the oil services firm the vice president once headed, Halliburton Co., is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the way it accounted for cost overruns on construction jobs during Cheney`s tenure.

Suspicion of Bush’ accounting irregularity involvement was finished legally before 11 years, but the suspicion of Cheney is under progress. If the fraudulent accounting practice of Halliburton was proved in the court or SEC’s investigation, it will be a terrible blow to him. Cheney is a influential person in White House.

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “the suit is without merit, and that`s where it stands.” Halliburton`s chief financial officer, Doug Foshee, said the claims were ‘untrue, unsupported and unfounded.’

“I sued on the half of shareholders who had enormous damages due to fraudulent accounting practice of Halliburton” Larry Klayman, chairman of the Washington-based group said. He also warned “We are reviewing the measure for the president Bush wh are involved in the insider transaction of Harken Energy Corporation.

Besides, Dick Cheney praised now-disgraced Arthur Andersen LLP for going above and beyond routine audits for the company in the promotional videotape.

In the promotional videotape surfaced by Wall Street Journal, the vice president said “One of the things I like that they do for us is that, in effect, I get good advice from their people based upon how we`re doing business and how we`re operating, over and above the, just sort of the normal audit arrangement”.

Eun-Taek Hong euntack@donga.com