Senate Asks to Subpoena Enron, Auditors Over Destroyed Papers
By JENNIFER COLEMAN
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday January 15, 6:40 pm Eastern Time
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- An accounting firm's destruction of some of energy giant Enron's (NYSE:ENE - news) financial documents may have violated a state Senate committee's subpoena, senators investigating the state's energy crisis said Tuesday.
Sen. Joe Dunn, chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation in the Wholesale Energy Market, said he'll ask for subpoenas to require officials from Enron Corp. and Arthur Andersen LLP, Enron's accountants, to appear for depositions about the destroyed documents.
The accounting firm has admitted that it destroyed some Enron documents after federal securities regulators asked for information about Enron.
``We believe that some of the documents that have been destroyed by Arthur Andersen ... are covered by the subpoena served upon Enron last June,'' Dunn said. ``Destruction of any documents that were under subpoena by this legislative committee is a violation of California law.''
On Tuesday, Andersen fired its lead auditor of Enron and put three others on leave pending an internal inquiry.
Andersen spokesman Patrick Dorton said the accounting firm was cooperating with investigators and was looking into the matter itself.
``We have no reason to believe that anything related to these matters was disposed of, but we don't know all the facts,'' he said.
Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne said the company had cooperated and would continue to cooperate ``with all inquiries and investigations.''
Dunn's committee has questioned Enron and five other major energy companies as it looks into whether power suppliers influenced the market enough to run up wholesale energy prices last year.
A huge jump in wholesale electricity prices caused the state's three largest utilities to incur billions in debts that a deregulation law kept them from passing to consumers.
The energy companies haven't signed ``non-destruct'' agreement regarding documents the committee has subpoenaed, Dunn said, but only Enron has also refused to agree to save relevant financial papers. |
