Arthur Andersen Turkey Alumni Web Site

Welcome to the Official Arthur Andersen Turkey Alumni web site.

Former employees who worked at Turkish offices of Arthur Andersen have established this web site, which offers various networking tools, in September 2003.

Having reached 800 registered members in three years, a dozen of volunteer alumni established Arthurlular (Arthurians) Association of Turkey in March 2005.

Please contact the Association Management at biz@arthurlular.com for further information.

You can find below the unofficial translation of the news article that took place in the November 9, 2003 (Sunday) issue of Hurriyet newspaper which is the most read daily in Turkey with circulation over 600,000.
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Arthur Andersen is Re-awakening

Former employees of Arthur Andersen took action to re-awake the firm culture of Arthur Andersen Turkey which is no longer operative in Turkish business arena. The Arthurians who established a web site at www.arthurlular.com is planning to become a society. The underlying reason behind this is action is the Arthur Andersen culture and close friendship ties ex-Arthur employees have.

Former employees claimed ownership on the company culture of Arthur Andersen after it dissolved from the business world following the Enron scandal.

Turkish Arthur Andersen employees, who worked there between different periods of time, began to gather under the name Arthurlular (Arthurians). First they opened a web site at www.arthurlular.com . By this gathering they plan to keep the Arthur culture and friendship ties alive.

Arthur Andersen was one of the largest financial and consulting services companies in the world before it closed down. After the inclusion of Arthur Andersen's name to the malpractices took place at the American energy company Enron, it dissolved from the business world. The Company was the auditor of Enron. It has been found out that the audit reports of Enron did not reflect the reality. It has also been found that thousands of documents and e-mails have been destroyed by the Arthur Andersen.

The Company, which was established in the USA in 1913 and ceased operation in 2002, had 85.000 employees worldwide. First Turkish office was opened in 1975 and in 2002 it merged with E&Y. During this period, thousands of people worked at Arthur Andersen.

The idea of creating Arthurlular.com and creating a society for former Arthur Andersen employees belongs to Umut Urfali. Currently working at Efes Pilsen as a Strategy and Business Development Supervisor, Urfali worked at Arthur Andersen audit department between 1997-1999. Arthur Andersen culture and friendship ties between former employees made him to start this gathering.

Urfali says the idea started to shape in March of 2003. He says: “Arthur Andersen was a school for all of us. We wanted to keep the firm culture alive. Former employees were often making small social gatherings with former colleagues. After the firm's merge with another company in 2002 under their name, I decided to take a more solid action towards a re-union of Arthurians. My intent was to establish a network of Arthur alumni in Turkey. The more general idea was to start a society. First step was the web site”.

The web site was opened in September 25 with members exceeding 350 nowadays. Urfali worked on voluntary basis. Hakan Kaya, with whom he worked on a different project, also volunteered as a web master to create the web site.

Urfali stated that they are aiming to reach 500 members by the year end. Soon they will be organizing different events with their members. First goal is to give a big re-union cocktail. Currently they are working on providing membership cards for members to get discounts at many places. Organizing panels, seminars are also within their plans.