Former Enron chief quits board
Former Enron chairman and chief executive Kenneth Lay has resigned from the board of directors of the collapsed oil giant.
The announcement came as Congress was considering whether to force him and other executives to appear before inquiry panels
The Senate Commerce and Financial Services committees are to vote on whether to subpoena Mr Lay, who on Monday refused to appear before a sub-committee at which he had previously agreed to testify.
Mr Lay's lawyers said the hearing would be biased because of comments by politicians over the weekend.
Other executives have also said they will refuse to testify in the inquiries into the collapse, which cost pension funds, investors and banks millions of dollars.
A BBC correspondent in Washington says that even if the Enron executives are forced to appear, they could still invoke their right to silence under the US constitution.
Senator Ernest Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said the panel would meet on Tuesday "to get authority to issue a subpoena" for Mr Lay's appearance.
Mr Lay would be summoned to appear before the committee on 12 February, he said.
Mr Lay's lawyer said he had cancelled his plan to testify because of investigators' "prosecutorial" attitude.
Mr Lay also pulled out of another planned appearance before a House of Representatives financial services sub-committee, scheduled for Tuesday.
Evasion
Several Senate hearings aiming to discover what caused the largest bankruptcy in US history and how similar disasters could be averted in future, have already been sidestepped.
Mr Lay's lawyer, Earl Silbert, said comments by congressmen suggested that investigators had already made up their minds about his client's role in the company's demise.
"He was looking forward to a meaningful, reasoned question-and-answer session to provide his understanding of the events and to discuss a number of related policy, legal and regulatory issues," said Mr Silbert, adding that the company's downfall had been devastating for his client.
Silence expected
Mr Silbert said his client could not be expected to participate in proceedings if conclusions had been drawn before Mr Lay had spoken.
A 217-page report from a panel of Enron directors released at the weekend claimed that some of the company's top executives took millions of dollars "they should never have received".
The report also said Mr Lay had personally approved the partnership arrangements that led to key accounts being kept off the balance sheet, although he is not accused of making any personal financial gain.
Enron's former chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling are still scheduled to appear before the Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, although they have indicated that they will refuse to answer questions from Congress.
Enron's collapse is being scrutinised by about a dozen Congressional committees, and is also the subject of a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice.
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