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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (7997)	11/30/2001 6:06:35 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Here is an article from SI's home page headliners that talks of many "raised eyebrows" concerning Enron. THere was much talk about how Enron was Bush's largest campaign contributor. Much of the talk was done on these threads. I will look for articles about the Ken Lay's being Bush's good buddy. Lay is the Chairman of the board for Enron. Reuters Finance News Enron Directors' Deals Raise Eyebrows Nov 30 5:06pm ET HOUSTON (Reuters) - Directors of Enron Corp. , already under fire for failing to identify and correct problems that brought the energy trading giant to the brink of collapse, had lucrative side deals with the company that drew added criticism from corporate governance experts on Friday. The deals ranged from consulting jobs to purchases of goods and services from affiliated companies. They raised doubts about the board's independence from the senior managers they were supposed to supervise on behalf of the stockholders, the experts said. "Directors who have side consulting arrangements are not considered, under governance guidelines, to have the necessary independence from management," said Charles Elson, director of the Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. In contrast to the murky off-balance-sheet financing deals that played a key role in Enron's demise, the company made detailed disclosures of its deals with members of its board of directors in a proxy statement published earlier this year. The document shows that in addition to his supervisory duties as an Enron director, John Urquhart was paid $493,914 last year for providing consulting services to Enron. "That's a huge amount of money. Best practice is no consulting fees to any directors," said Nell Minnow, an editor at business research group The Corporate Library, which does extensive work on corporate governance issues. Another Enron director, Lord John Wakeham, received $72,000 last year for advice on Enron's European operations. Enron director Herbert Winokur was affiliated with the privately owned National Tank Co. that made sales to Enron worth $370,294 last year, the proxy statement said. The document also shows that Enron paid $517,200 last year for travel services provided to Enron employees. The travel agency business that provided the services is 50 percent-owned by Sharon Lay, sister of Enron chairman and chief executive Ken Lay. "Most major companies do not engage in that dodge because it is such an obvious one," Minnow said.