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

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is probably going to find it difficult to hire anyone who has the necessary standing to vouch for the correctness of an out of date balance sheet whose date was changed.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."

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.