AFC Enterprises is the Sandy Springs, Georgia

Sandy Springs, Georgia

Sandy Springs is a city in north Georgia, United States. It is a northern suburb of Atlanta. With a 2010 population of 93,853, Sandy Springs is the sixth-largest city in the state and the second-largest city in Metro Atlanta. Sandy Springs is located in north Fulton County, Georgia, just south of...

-headquartered company that owns Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits is a chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants, owned since 1993 by the Sandy Springs, Georgia-based AFC Enterprises, which was originally America's Favorite Chicken Company...

. AFC Enterprises is a publicly traded company.

AFC was formerly the franchiser of Seattle's Best Coffee

Seattle's Best Coffee

Seattle's Best Coffee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbucks, is a specialty coffee retailer and wholesaler based in Seattle, Washington.Seattle's Best Coffee has retail stores and grocery sub-stores in 20 states and provinces and the District of Columbia. Sub-stores can also be found within many...

 and Cinnabon

Cinnabon

Cinnabon is a chain of American baked goods stores and kiosks, normally found in high-traffic areas such as malls. The company's signature item is a grande cinnamon roll. As of July 2009, over 750 Cinnabon bakeries are in operation in over 30 countries around the world...

. In 2003 the company came under investigation from the Internal Revenue Service

Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...

 as part of the accounting scandal of Arthur Anderson. AFC was forced to sell off its Seattle's Best Coffee division to Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 and in 2004 sold its international division and Cinnabon to FOCUS Brands, Inc.  In late 2004, AFC sold off its Church's Chicken

Church's Chicken

Church's Chicken is a US-based chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken, also trading outside North America as Texas Chicken. The chain was founded as Church's Fried Chicken To Go by George W. Church, Sr., on April 17, 1952, in San Antonio, across the street from The Alamo...

 division to Arcapita

Arcapita

Arcapita Inc. is a Delaware-incorporated holding and real estate company, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia....

 (formerly Crescent Capital Investments), a venture-capital firm that also is the parent of Caribou Coffee

Caribou Coffee

Caribou Coffee Company is a specialty coffee and espresso retailer, the second largest in the United States after Starbucks. Caribou sells coffee, tea, and bakery goods in 415 company-owned coffeehouses in 16 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 126 franchise locations worldwide.-...

.

In August 2004, the company sued

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 the now-defunct Arthur Andersen

Arthur Andersen

Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms among PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG, providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to large corporations...

 company for malpractice

Malpractice

In law, malpractice is a type of negligence in, which the professional under a duty to act, fails to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty is the proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers harm...

 and breach of contract

Breach of contract

Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....

, alleging that its accountant

Accountant

An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...

s failed to catch the problems they were hired to when performing audit

Audit

The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product. The term most commonly refers to audits in accounting, but similar concepts also exist in project management, quality management, and energy conservation.- Accounting...

s for 2000, 2001, and 2002.