Nee hoor zo werkt dat niet bij ons in de USA. Ken Lay loopt nog keurig vrij rond.
Sunday, November 2, 2003
Enron's shell game isn't over
JAN JARBOE RUSSELL
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
If the Enron scandal were an Aesop's fable, the moral of the tale would be: To enjoy a career in crime, follow the letter of the law while investing heavily in those who make and enforce the law.
In other words: Keep your backside covered and your wallet open.
This is the wily strategy that has been faithfully followed by those at the very top of Enron -- namely, Kenneth Lay, the former chairman, and Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive. So far it's worked like Teflon.
Two years after Enron went bankrupt and 10,000 of its employees lost their jobs -- as well as $1.2 billion in retirement savings -- the government is not even close to indicting Lay and Skilling. And the word is that prosecutors will probably never indict them.
There are several interesting theories about why Lay and Skilling appear to be untouchable.
The first one is that the whole mess at Enron is simply too complicated for ordinary mortals -- in other words, jurors -- to understand.
I don't buy this theory for a minute. Any 10-year-old understands the concept of a shell game, and that's fundamentally the game that Enron ran.
Basically, it went like this: The guys at Enron kept coming up with new ways to shuffle debt around so that debt looked like cash. Enron never had any real cash. It was always an illusion.
The second theory is that Lay and Skilling might have been running the company, but they didn't know that anyone below them was doing anything wrong. Why? Because some of the best-paid accountants, lawyers and bankers in the country told them their operations were clean.
This has given Lay and Skilling "plausible deniability," a legal tactic available only to those corrupt and wealthy enough to pursue it before their malfeasance is front-page news.
The third theory is that key people who worked directly under Lay and Skilling aren't cooperating with government prosecutors because they're betting that the government can't -- or won't -- ever be able to bring a successful criminal case against Enron's top two executives.
Ben Glison, Enron's corporate treasurer, is so far the only executive to go to prison. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison but has refused to cooperate with investigators.
He's not the only one who won't talk. Despite incredible pressure from the government, Andrew Fastow, Enron's chief financial officer, also remains mute. Fastow, who designed the off-the-book partnerships, has not only been indicted himself, but his wife, Lea, has also been indicted for filing false income-tax returns. Still, Fastow won't deal.
Fastow, like Lay and Skilling, maintains that his schemes were legal. After all, Lay and Skilling both told him he was doing a good job; all the accountants and lawyers signed off on it. He, too, has plausible deniability.
The X-factor in all this is: What role -- if any -- do Enron's former political connections play in this charade?
From the beginning, the Enron case was not pushed from the top. Shortly after Enron filed for bankruptcy in late 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft was forced to recuse himself from the investigation because he had received campaign contributions from Enron.
Vice President Dick Cheney was in no position to push. He was too chummy with Lay. After the inauguration in 2000, Cheney met six times with Lay and other Enron representatives to help write the country's energy policy.
President Bush himself was also politically compromised by his friendship with Lay, or "Kenny Boy," as Bush once called him. In 1993, Lay and other Enron executives gave $146,500 to Bush's first campaign for governor of Texas.
Lay kept the money flowing. He gave money to help pay for the 2000 GOP convention, raised $100,000 for Bush's campaign, helped finance the recount in Florida and helped pay for Bush's inauguration ceremonies.
Perhaps these political connections are ancient history and have no impact on the government's current inability to indict Lay and Skilling.
Then again: Maybe the shell game is still in progress.