The exasperated cry of where were the auditors that goes up every time a brazen corporate scandal is exposed is usually followed by the accountants arguing loudly that they did all they were required to do and wriggling off the hook, but Coopers & Lybrand appear to have been nailed in the case of MiniScribe Corp and the infamous bricks that masqueraded as disk drives: the Wall Street Journal quotes people familiar with the accountancy firm’s settlement with bondholders of the failed firm saying that it to pay out between $45m and $50m; Hambrecht & Quist, MiniScribe’s investment banker, is believed to have settled for up to $30m; both face a dozen or so other lawsuits relating to the Longmont company.
