This is part one of CFO Brew’s yearlong look at pivotal moments over the last 25 years that shaped the finance and accounting profession. For the rest of the series, click here. Let me take you back to the era of Y2K, my sweet summer children. Destiny’s Child and Christina Aguilera ruled the airwaves. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were married. And auditors had relationships that were just a little too cozy with their clients—and Republicans and Democrats were able to agree, almost unanimously, on a massive piece of legislation. Truly, it was another time. Prior to 2002, it wasn’t unusual for auditing firms to have lucrative consulting contracts with the selfsame clients they audited. This was the case with Big Five firm Arthur Andersen and Enron, the seventh-largest company trading on the US stock market. Then, in 2001, Enron went bankrupt amid an SEC investigation for fraud. Enron’s executives had been cooking the books, courts found, and multiple Senate and House committees found that Arthur Andersen’s accounting practices facilitated their fraudulent activity. Arthur Andersen admitted to shredding Enron documents, was convicted of obstruction of justice, and was forced to stop auditing public companies. Investors’ confidence in capital markets was shaken. In response, Senator Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland, and Representative Michael Oxley, a Republican from Ohio, proposed a bill that would regulate the auditing profession through the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), render auditing firms more independent, require more robust reporting over internal controls, and hold top management responsible for the content of financial statements. Click here for more on the creation of the PCAOB.—CV | 
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