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Non-Tech : The Enron Scandal - Unmoderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (766)	1/28/2002 7:09:58 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 3602

Enron and Andersen is no fairy tale By Jeff Randall (Filed: 27/01/2002) HERE'S this week's quiz. Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, called it "aggressive", a leading US Congressman said it was "skullduggery", and a senior Republican party strategist summed it up as "hocus-pocus". To what were they referring? Mafia money-laundering, perhaps? Robert Mugabe's electioneering style? Sinn Fein propaganda? Nope, none of the above. They were describing Andersen's auditing at Enron, the collapsed energy group, which overpuffed its profits by nearly $600m before running out of gas. Having failed to add up the numbers properly, some of Andersen's key personnel appear to have opted for a quick career change: moving out of auditing and into the confetti business. Mountains of Enron documents have been shredded, leaving investigators struggling to work out how a black hole in the company's accounts could have been concealed for so long. Until Friday's suspected suicide of Clifford Baxter, attention had focused largely on David Duncan, the Andersen accountant who headed the Enron audit. He cut a pathetic figure before the US congressional inquiry, electing to stay silent rather than rebut the metaphorical charge that he'd been at the wheel of his firm's getaway car after Enron had robbed the bank. But suggestions by Andersen that Duncan was a sole trader in the bungled cover-up unravelled when other executives at the accountancy group testified that more of its employees destroyed documents than had previously been disclosed. Like other Washington scandals (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky), it's the drip drip drip that's so damaging, as evidence emerges of cash-for-favours, corporate chicanery and regulatory complacence. Republican pollster Bill McInturff warns: "Enron is a much bigger story than anyone in Washington realises." He should know: he advises Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida and brother of the president. As details are prised out by a three-pronged probe from Congress, the FBI and media newshounds, Enron's bewildered shareholders will want to know this: precisely how much money did the company and Kenneth Lay, its former chairman and chief executive, give to the Bush election campaign? What did they get in return? And did Enron executives know the game was up before they unloaded a bucketful of shares while ordinary staff were unable to sell theirs? At the very least, Enron was a home for dogs that didn't bark. Andersen, which operated hand-in-glove with Enron's top brass, failed to protect shareholders' interests. Enron's bosses ignored warnings from a whistleblower. Enron non-executive directors, who should have checked management excesses, were caught napping. And over on Capitol Hill, business-friendly politicians were so delighted with Enron's largesse, they wouldn't hear anything bad about it. And what of Lord Wakeham, the former Tory cabinet minister who is an Enron director and sits on its audit committee? Perhaps he was too busy ticking off naughty journalists (he's chairman of the Press Complaints Commission) to notice that when a share price goes from $85 to below $1 in less than a year, slashing the company's value by $80bn, the stock market is trying to tell you something. Enron has all the ingredients of a Hollywood blockbuster: fear, greed, money, power, politics and now death. The only missing element is sex. If that turns up, the movie's title will write itself: Getting Layed. telegraph.co.uk