Posted on 07/07/2004 1:07:00 PM PDT by OneTimeLurker
You did notice that USB Warburg stepped in and took over Enron's trading desk after they helped force Enron into bankruptcy. What are friends for?
Now... None of that has anything to do with my good friend lewislynn! (snart!)
Enron contributed $100,000 to the DNC. Six days later Micky Cantor and Ron Brown traveled to Bosnia and signed a $100 million Enron power deal.
Enron had a more or less permanent seat on all the trade junkets of Ron Brown, and Ken Lay traveled with Hazel O'Leary on almost all of her trade trips.
Lay was a close friend of Mac McLarty, and in fact hired him after he left the White House. Enron also hired Betsy Moler (Deputy Energy Secretary) and Linda Robinson from the Treasury Department.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson traveled to Nigeria to aid Enron in signing an $880 million power contracts between Enron and Nigeria.
Clinton National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake, threatened to withhold foreign aid to Mozambique if it didn't approve an Enron pipeline project. The deal also included a $770 million power contract for Enron.
Robert Rubin called a top Treasury official asking for government help on Enron's debt problems in its final days. Rubin is Chairman of Citigroup's Executive Committee. Citigroup is Enron's largest unsecured lender at $3 billion. No help was given by Bush officials. Citigroup is the largest contributor to Tom Daschel's campaign as well as that of Joe Lieberman.
Clinton wrote a personal note asking that the administration do all it could to help Enron secure a power plant contract in India. According to reports, the Ambassador to India and various officials spent a lot of time doing just that.
OPIC and the Ex-Im Bank approved over $4 billion worth of Enron projects under the Clinton administration. According to the Boston Globe, 27 firms donated $2.3 million to the DNC, and received $5.5 million in federal support. All but three firms of the firms who got OPIC help were DNC contributors.
My wife drives the Volvo (both are absolutely beautiful)...I couldn't hate business, I am a business, I'm not nor have I ever been a Democrat and as to Gray Davis, after reading some of the Arnold bashing threads from your friends I'd say you'd have a better argument with them being Gray Davis fans...Judging by their words at times it seems they're wishing he was back.
Why do you not hold the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power, the City of Seattle, or the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to the same standards that you require of Enron?
Why are you so concerned about what I do or don't do?...How does it have any affect on your ridge runner life in the backwoods of NC?...Are you still fantasizing about me?
I think that the Justice Dept. has got some orders to do a press on Corporate crime.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A look at some of the most high-profile recent corporate scandals and the status of pending legal action.
- Adelphia Communications Corp.: Founder John Rigas and his son Timothy were convicted Thursday of conspiracy, bank fraud and securities fraud. Another Rigas son, Michael, was acquitted of conspiracy charges in a partial verdict; the jury was undecided on most of the remaining counts against him. A fourth executive, Michael Mulcahey, was found not guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud.
- Credit Suisse First Boston: The company's former investment banking star Frank Quattrone was convicted May 3 on federal charges of obstruction of justice. His first trial last year ended in a hung jury. Quattrone, who made a fortune taking Internet companies public during the dot-com stock craze, could get more than a year in prison at his sentencing Sept. 8.
- Enron Corp.: Former chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he was involved in a wide-ranging scheme to deceive the public, company shareholders and government regulators.
Enron's former chief executive, Jeffrey Skilling, pleaded not guilty in February to fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and other federal counts related to the once-mighty energy giant's collapse. Former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
- HealthSouth Corp.: Fired CEO Richard Scrushy is tentatively scheduled for trial in late September in Birmingham, Ala., on federal charges of leading a multibillion-dollar scheme to overstate HealthSouth earnings to make it appear the company was meeting Wall Street forecasts.
Sixteen former HealthSouth executives have been charged with participating in a conspiracy to inflate the earnings; all but Scrushy have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators.
- Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia: Company founder Martha Stewart was convicted March 5 of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements related to a personal sale of ImClone Systems stock. On Thursday, the judge refused to grant her a new trial based on perjury charges against a government witness. Sentencing for Stewart and her former broker Peter Bacanovic is set for July 16.
- Qwest Communications International Inc.: Federal prosecutors in Denver failed to win a conviction against any of four former midlevel executives accused of plotting to help the company improperly book $34 million in revenue. Each faced 11 charges including conspiracy and securities fraud. On April 16, a jury acquitted John Walker and Bryan Treadway of all charges. The jury acquitted Grant Graham of three wire fraud charges but deadlocked on the remaining charges against him and on all charges against Thomas Hall. Graham subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact to wire fraud with reckless indifference. On June 9, a grand jury returned a new indictment against Hall on four charges; that case is pending.
- Tyco International Ltd.: A Manhattan state Supreme Court justice declared a mistrial in the case involving former CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO Mark Swartz, who were accused of stealing $600 million from the company. The judge said there had been undue pressure on one juror. A retrial is scheduled for January. In a separate trial, a jury should begin considering larceny charges later this month against former Tyco lawyer Mark Belnick.
- WorldCom Inc.: Former CEO Bernard Ebbers has pleaded not guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges for allegedly directing a massive accounting fraud now estimated at $11 billion. A federal trial in Manhattan was set for Nov. 9, but the defense has requested a delay until at least January. Former CFO Scott Sullivan has pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to testify against Ebbers.
In 2000, the clinton justice department went after Microsoft and the market crashed. It will happen again if Bush keeps up this Jihad against "big business".
What really frosts me is that once again in violation of the 9th and 10th amendments, Bush is trying to federalize what legally belongs in the state domain: corporate law.
If Ken Lay violated his fiduciary duty to shareholders, then try him in the state where Enron was incorporated.
I'm sorry, but I see these as political trials - no better than what one would expect in a communist dictatorship.
Did you hear the judge's statement when he rejected a retrial for Martha Stewart because that federal agent lied on the stand? "His testimony wouldn't have changed the jury's mind." Who the hell does he think he is to speak for the jury?
And while I am ranting about Martha Stewart, she was not convicted of insider trading, she was convicted of lying to federal agents. But the judge in her case has just ruled that it's OK for federal agents to lie in court when necessary to convict someone of lying to a federal agent.
Where is the outrage?
You actually believe that he is innocent? Look, I'm for business just as much as any other FReeper is, but there is no way Lay's hand are clean, no way.
I do feel that certain politicians and utility types are trying to "spin" his indictment to make it seem he/Enron is guilty of things other than he is being charged. That disturbs me.
I agree with snopercod that there should be some outrage in regards to some of the political sniping going on and the seemingly abuse by the justice dept. (Yes, Martha appears to have been railroaded, but she also appears to have done some pretty dumb things for a former broker and someone on the stock exchange board! I think she deserves a new trial and I think that the agent who lied deserves a trial and possibly some jail time.)
I do fear that there may be a shark-like "feeding frenzy" where the Justice Department has tasted "blood" of corporate crime and is going wild. That bothers me. However, dilberately going after some of the folks at Tyco & WorldCom and some other companies for their corrupt practices is also just fine with me.
I also feel the Ken Lay, if he is at all competent, should have had some inkling that his CFO and auditors were crooks and if so, he had a responsibility to have done something about it. Even though corporate america likes Board Members and CEO's who leave quitely, I personally like the style of the Roy Disney's and others who when they see a problem, really take a stand and let the stockholders know about it. I find such honesty important if the stockmarket is going to be a vehicle to solve our social security problem so individuals feel comfortable in investing their retirement money in it.
I want Board Members to stay up nights worrying about corporate decisions and makeing sure they aren't being feed BS by management. I want the Board Audit Committee to grill the independent auditors to make sure another A Anderson situtation never happens. I want CEO's & CFO's to have to sign and personally attest to the accuracy of SEC filings and know that if the filings are used to dupe stockholders that the CEO and CFO may spend a lot of free time in a federal jail somewhere. I also want to know that when I talk to my broker, that he isn't under intense pressue to sell some stocks that will make his company's investment banking branch extra fees or when an analyst recommends a stock it is because of what the company is doing and not kickbacks via stock issuance or banking revenues.
To that extent, I want the Justice Dept. to "clean some corporate house," but fairly and not by running over the legal framework of this country.
Somebody should box his ears. Oh wait, it looks like somebody already did.
"The new indictment accused Lay, Skilling and Causey of enriching themselves through salaries, bonus, grants of stock and stock options.
I'd be enriching myself through a salary if I could find a job. Maybe I'd better not, now that it's a crime in America.
Yes, it appears that the frenzy is creating new crimes. I think that the media, even folks like Investor's Business Daily needs to take a deep breath and regain their composure. When the mob gets it "blood rage" going it can be pretty frightening.
Oh course if Kerry and ultra-liberal democrats are elected successful people will be given a choice between crimes of illegal "enrichment" or donating more in taxes and political party donations.
Actually, I have been doing a bit of genealogical research on my dad's side of the family that were Germans from Russia. It appears that four of six brothers (my grandfather was one) left Russia with their families for the US between 1900 and 1908. In the 1930's in the Ukrane, prosperous hard working farmers of German heritage were being collected in the middle of the night by Communist Party officers and shipped to labor camps in Siberia for the crimes of being "kulaks" or "children of kulaks." Most of them died there.
Maybe it isn't a "new" crime after all?
Have a great weekend!
If Lay was "enriching himself" as a "reward" for that process, then he would deserve a criminal indictment.
If corporate officers don't want to take those risks, they don't deserve those fat salaries. There are plenty who will do that job for less.
Point: Under the Securities Act of 1933, "It shall be unlawful to make, or cause to be made to any prospective purchaser any representation contrary to the foregoing provisions of this section". This is why you get a "prospectus" before you buy a stock. (Some people actually read them.)
To protect the public,
The [Securities and Exchange] Commission may at any time issue an order preventing or suspending the use of a prospectus permitted under this subsection (b), if it has reason to believe that such prospectus has not been filed (if required to be filed as part of the registration statement) or includes any untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state any material fact required to be stated therein or necessary to make the statements therein, in the light of the circumstances under which such prospectus is or is to be used, not misleading.
So, did the SEC suspend Enron's prospectus when they found out about all these "shady deals"? No, of course not.
But as a punishment for their failure to perform their stated job, they got more money FY 2003 Budget Amendment: Securities and Exchange Commission:
Securities and Exchange Commission /Department of Housing and Urban Development An increase of $100 million for the SEC. The additional resources would provide for increased personnel, merit-based pay increases, and information technology costs. The increased funding is offset by an accompanying proposal that would rescind $100 million of amounts recaptured from contract cancellations by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Oh, so the SEC is trying to "enrich themselves through salaries, bonus, etc..." Why are they not on trial with Ken Lay, hmmmmmmm?
LOL, we both know why that'll never happen, and why it was Roosevelt and his communist flacks who created the SEC. I don't think you want a government agency that would be effective enough to catch every corporation before they misrepresented a themselves to a prospective stockholder simply because it is too much power to be sold for corrupt purpose. As we both would agree, the better answer is to get rid of it and allow fully insured private auditors to oversee the disclosure. In Enron's case, that would have been Andersen.
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