Half of SCO's Accountants Quit

Groklaw Reader writes "Apparently, SCO's lawyers were working overtime last Sunday, because they wrote a quick plea to the bankruptcy court for permission to hire accounting temps. Why? Approximately half of SCO's finance department has resigned or been fired. Two who resigned had over ten years of experience each. One can only assume that they know what's about to happen to SCO."

Comments

Crumble Crumble....

[beheaderaswp]

I think the biggest worry I have now... which may actually be moot- is who ends up with SCO's assets and IP?

Once they hit chapter 7, as the money runs out, the court will dismember them. Hopefully, the assets they do have end up with IBM.

I'm not so sure about Novell's alignment in the open source world yet.

But even better is this:

If one of their accounting people was a CPA- they could be in deep do do if
there are problems found.

I know this, I'm watching a corporation pull the bond out from under a CPA right
now. The liabilities are incredible and the end game is scary.

Maybe an accountant will have damaging information heh?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[ackthpt]

Heck, the accountants probably know that there is no money to pay themselves. So, why work?

Reminds me of a company I once worked for. The accountants (finance people) were sworn to some sort of secrecy not to disclose to other employees what they were doing. Basically only paying accounts when there was dire cause (and in some instances the cheques were immediately pulled from the mail bin and locked in a drawer after the vendor agreed to free things up.) After the fall someone finally told me what was going on. Accountants know the games that are played to keep a semblance of business as usual even when the precipice is looming

Those who stay on risk receiving pay cheques which will not cash.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

At a reasonable guess, the accountants quit/were fired because they refused to sign the financial statements that were submitted with the Chapter 11 filing. Signing those statements would be professional suicide for any accountant. SCO is probably going to find it difficult to hire anyone who has the necessary standing to vouch for the correctness of an out of date balance sheet whose date was changed.

I think we can now expect the FBI will soon start hauling in SCO officers and lawyers on RICO and SEC charges. Fraud doesn't get much more blatant than submitting such obviously bad financials to a bankruptcy court.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[sfonative]

"Do they even still sell something?" ........

I work in IT at a small company that uses SCO unix on some servers. We configured a new server and had to buy another license about six months ago. (Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.)

I was on the phone with our vendor and said to him, "We may be the last people to ever buy this."

He replied, "You're probably right."

Re:Almost done.

[semiotec]

while I am as glad as most people here about SCO's deserved and inevitable downfall, sometimes I couldn't help thinking whether it would have been better if Novell hadn't stepped into this fight.

Sure, I understand that they are protecting their rights and IP and that they are right to do so. But by pulling the carpet out from under SCO's feet, they also prevented SCO's claims that "millions of lines of codes were copied from UNIX to Linux" being thoroughly tested (and debunked) in court.

I think that it was a good thing that SCO targeted IBM, who 1) had the resources to fight SCO (and their sponsors), and 2) happened to be on the side of Linux developers/users. So it would have been an excellent opportunity to quash this claim once and for all. Despite SCO's bluster and chest-thumping, I think it would have been extremely unlikely for them to be able to convince any person of even limited intelligence of their claims (including Enderle, Didio and O'Gara).

But all we have now is a statement from Novell saying that there is no Unix in Linux. With Novell being so deep in bed with Microsoft, I am slightly nervous with Novell's overall position and and disposition towards Linux.

It may not be what you think...

[Alpha830RulZ]

Back in the day, my accounting 410 prof told us that it is a common tactic in troubled financial times to fire your accountants, and then have your lawyer hire them back. That way, management's interactions with them become privileged communication, and not admissible in court. Perhaps the Country Lawyer could weigh in on this.