179 reasons you shouldn’t use Excel
November 19, 2008 by Shane BorerPosted in: "Would you want this person in Finance?", Bankruptcy, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest news & views, Tech failure
If you’re up to your ears in Excel charts and spreadsheets, you might want to do some double-checking before they make your company go under.
That’s what nearly happened at Cleary, Gottlied, Steen & Hamilton, an international law firm with a major office in New York. When the firm helped managed the sale of Lehman Brothers’ assets to Barclays Capital, Inc., an Excel reformatting error nearly put the company in over its head.
According to CGSH lawyers, a second-year associate asked a less-experienced employee to reformat an Excel document containing the Lehman contracts to be assumed by Barclays. When the employee resized the rows and made other alterations, 179 contracts were mistakenly added to the purchase agreement — far more than Barclays wanted to purchase.
The case to have the additional contracts thrown out is still making its way throw New York’s bankruptcy courts, in the wake of Lehman’s recent collapse.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Tags: Contract, Excel, Formatting error, Lehman Brothers, New York, Purchase agreement
November 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
This had nothing to do with Excel but with the control procedures that should have been in place to prevent something like this from happening.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Little to do with Excel but more to do with poor spreadsheet design and not building control totals and safeguards in as well as backups before and after major changes.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
A matter of such important magnitude should not have been put under the control of an inexperienced employee. Allowing only formatting changes, with limited ability to chnage the overall structure and content, could have prevented any of this from happening. The lack of control, and securities, at the hands of the powers-to-be , is without a doubt , the cause of this significant error, and by no means that of Excel. Garbage in Garbage out!!!!!
November 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I have to agree. This is somebody covering their backside. There is no way Excel does this because of re-sizing rows and columns. Somebody gave this kid different version of the contract by mistake.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
First, making alterations to an existing Excel file does not add data to any spreadsheet, unless there are formulas that were changed. So, the person making changes added data and did not follow instructions.
Second, this story is a written by someone who apparently does not know Excel, or they would realize the title of the article and content are not in sync with what Excel is all about. AS Bill said, “Little (if anything) to do with Excel.”
There is something seriously wrong with a prestigious firm using Excel without some serious checking. Guess I would not use them.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Wow, I cannot believe that someone can “blame” Excel. With such an important contract 1) the formulas should have been protected from the get go 2) How can they let something SO important go out without rechecking after an inexperienced person did work on the contract?
Look to thyself….
November 21st, 2008 at 6:46 pm
3) Why would Barclay’s attorney’s let them sign without reading the contract?
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Stupid on upper managments part not EXCEL.
November 27th, 2008 at 10:38 am
The contracts that weren’t included in the sale should have been *deleted* from the document. It sounds as if they simply *hid* the lines. This is were the mistake happened! When the poor grunt worker reformatted the document, the contracts were”magically” included. No one in the know proofread the document. It’s not Excel’s nor the grunt worker’s fault.
February 27th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Sounds like 179 reasons to hire smarter staff.