>>it's the offshore accounts
Well, Levitt did admit that the Clinton SEC failed to do its job - but really, isn't it more than that? His SEC appears to have actively enabled Enron, against the wishes of Congress:
.....Experts say that the S.E.C. rulings unshackled the company from significant accounting restraints and business dealings between the Enron companies and their executives. The 1997 exemption, in particular, cleared the path for the company to both expand overseas and make greater use of the special partnerships that have caused the company so much turmoil.
"From a regulatory standpoint, this raises a flag," said Joseph V. Del Raso, a former official at the S.E.C. in the 1980's and an expert on the Investment Company Act. "It gave them carte blanche to go all over the world and set up subsidiaries and affiliated entities that would have been prohibited under the act."
Another expert on the act, Mark A. Sargent, the dean of the Villanova law school, agreed.
"The Enron structure was not a single company with stockholders engaged in operations like an ordinary corporation," he said. "It was similar to an investment company with investments in a bunch of different companies. The decision to exempt those from the kind of protections to investors is now coming home to roost."...
nytimes.com |
