Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, 125 S.Ct. 2129 (U.S. 2005).
After becoming of aware of Enron's financial difficulties, Arthur Andersen told partners working on the Enron team to ensure compliance with Andersen's document retention policy. Following that meeting, substantial paper and electronic documents were destroyed. At trial, the jury found Arthur Andersen guilty of knowingly, intentionally and corruptly persuading employees to withhold documents from a regulatory proceeding. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed and held that the jury instructions were flawed. The court declared that, under normal circumstances, a manager could instruct employees to comply with a valid document retention policy, even though the policy was partly designed to prevent others (including the government) from accessing certain information. The court found that the jury instructions erroneously implied the jury did not have "to find any nexus between the "persua[sion]" to destroy documents and any particular proceeding." The court further stated that a "'knowingly ... corrup[t] persaude[r]' cannot be someone who persuades others to shred documents under a document retention policy when he does not have in contemplation any particular official proceeding in which those documents might be material."