(enron news follows)KLP: I'm a nice person, in fact I'm very sorry I responded to you in kind. I'm sure you're very nice (except when you disagree with someone :) ). Thank you for thinking I could have written that joke. It was emailed to me by a republican friend from Houston Texas. Have a lovely weekend.
Houston Chronicle...
March 1, 2002, 11:49AM
Skilling says he couldn't be expected to count the money every night
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Ex-Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling says the company had tight controls on financial risk but he couldn't be expected to oversee everything and "close out the cash drawers ... every night."
Skilling, whose recent testimony to Congress is being challenged by lawmakers, defended himself in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" being aired tonight.
"I think the Congress is acting as judge and jury," he said, saying that is to be expected in an election year.
Some lawmakers say Skilling knew more about questionable financial transactions than he told two congressional panels recently and are asking him to clear up what they see as discrepancies between his testimony and the accounts of his former colleagues.
Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told Skilling in a letter Thursday that documents obtained by the panel's investigators "appear to raise serious questions about the accuracy of your testimony."
Skilling, who abruptly resigned in August, said in the interview he was shocked by Enron's precipitous collapse as well as by the suicide in January of Enron executive Cliff Baxter, whom he called "my best friend."
Skilling said the energy-trading company had "one of the best control systems in the world," with hundreds of lawyers and accountants vigilant to prevent financial risk.
"It used to be kind of a joke in Enron that you couldn't go to the men's room without the accountants and the lawyers going in with you," he recounted.
Still, despite the controls put in place by company managers, the board of directors and its audit committee, Skilling said, "Can those controls catch everything? Of course not."
"Does a CEO of McDonald's ... go and close out the cash drawers of every store every night? ... You rely on the people within the company," he said.
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., the committee chairman, "remains convinced that Mr. Skilling was not candid in his statements before Congress," said Ken Johnson, a spokesman for Tauzin. "Testifying under oath is sacred, and anyone who violates that trust will be held accountable. We intend to aggressively pursue this until we get the truth."
Skilling's attorney, Bruce Hiler, said in a statement: "These questions have been repeatedly asked and answered by Mr. Skilling. It's a shame the House committee feels the need to continually release these letters in order to create a story where none exists."
In a new disclosure, data on company computers and obtained by Justice Department prosecutors shows that Enron paid its executives huge one-time bonuses -- totaling some $320 million -- as a reward for hitting stock-price targets, The New York Times reported today. The stock targets, ending in 2000, were reached at the same time investigators say Enron officials were improperly inflating company profits by as much as $1 billion, thereby buoying the stock price.
Documents made public Thursday, meanwhile, show that the government's top energy regulator met with senior Enron executives last fall, continuing a series of contacts that began when he was head of Texas' public utility commission.
Pat Wood, appointed by President Bush to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in August, told a lawmaker that he first met then-Enron chairman Kenneth Lay in May 1996 at a meeting of the Governor's Business Council in Texas.
Between March 1997 and January 2001, Wood said, he had contacts with Lay, Skilling and Enron chief of staff Steve Kean, who came to Wood's office at the state utility commission in January 1998.
Wood said he phoned Lay in March 1997 as state commission chairman seeking Enron's support for a utility restructuring bill and in January 2001 to express concern about the company's shift in policy regarding a Texas market issue.
Last November, when Enron was spiraling toward collapse, Lay called Wood, who was then the FERC chairman. An e-mail of the phone message appears to indicate that Lay was calling to inform Wood of a proposed merger between Enron and rival energy company Dynegy, designed to rescue Enron, according to a document Wood provided the lawmaker. Wood said he didn't return the call.
During that time, Lay was calling several Bush administration officials, including the Treasury and commerce secretaries, seeking help as Enron foundered. The energy-trading company collapsed into the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Dec. 2.
The House lawmakers' letter to Skilling notes that he testified Feb. 7 that when he resigned in August, he believed Enron was in strong financial condition and its financial reports accurately reflected its condition. Skilling also stated that he could not recall being involved in approving transactions related to the so-called Raptors, fragile financial structures that kept more than $1 billion in debt off Enron's books and eventually brought the company down.
The Raptors' main financial assets improperly consisted of Enron's own stock, which plummeted last year.
The documents obtained by the committee show, for example, that Lay and other Enron executives told company investigators last month that Skilling knew the details of many of the transactions.
"Given the financial significance of the Raptor transactions to Enron's balance sheet ... the recollections of these Enron employees with respect to your personal involvement seem highly credible," the lawmakers told Skilling. "Accordingly, your testimony regarding your lack of involvement appears less so." |
