Short Case 3

Enron, one of the largest corporations to ever file for (Chapter 1) bankruptcy protection, was number 7 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in America as ranked by revenues at the time of its bankruptcy. It was alleged that Enron executives were involved in questionable accounting and financial statement fraud, the disclosure of which led to the downward spiral in Enron's stock price and the financial ruin of thousands of employees and investors. In addition to Enron's internal accounting problems, it is alleged that its auditor, one of the large accounting firms, instructed employees to destroy documents related to its work for Enron.

1. Based on your understand of a fraud examiner's responsibilities regarding documents, what should the audit firm personnel have done with their documents if they had suspected that fraud had occurred?