Volume 49, Number 4 · March 14, 2002
Enron: Seduction and Betrayal
By Jeff Madrick
Report of Investigation by the Special Investigative Committee of the Board of Directors of Enron Corp.
by William C. Powers Jr., Raymond S. Troubh, and Herbert S. Winokur Jr.
news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/enron/sicreport
Widely promoted as one of the great corporations of a new age, the Enron company has turned out to be largely, and perhaps even mostly, a creation of accounting gimmickry. But the scandal of its collapse is not an isolated example of a single company run amok. The most serious of Enron's activities could not have been undertaken without the approval, encouragement, and at times complicity of many of the most prestigious independent accountants, lawyers, commercial and investment bankers, security analysts, and debt-rating agencies in the nation. They also could not have been carried out without an unusually lax attitude in Washington and elsewhere toward even the most basic securities regulations and disclosure requirements. More than any other recent event, Enron's collapse has made it apparent that there is something deeply wrong with the way public companies operate in America's financial markets, and with the way information is manipulated with little respect for the interests of clients or customers and for the spirit of the law, not to mention elementary standards of honesty.
Review, 4733 words
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