- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An internal Enron Corp. report showing the company
inflated profits while top employees raked in millions of dollars they
should not have received puts some Enron executives in jeopardy of criminal
prosecution, key members of Congress said on Sunday.
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- "This is a devastating report. ...
It suggests massive problems. This is almost a culture of corruption here,"
said Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who chairs a Senate Commerce
subcommittee that opens hearings on Monday on Enron's Dec. 2 filing of
the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
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- Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press,"
Dorgan said whether criminal charges should be brought was a Justice Department
decision, but "clearly some things have happened here that are going
to put some people ... in real jeopardy."
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- Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman
of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the report tracked his
findings.
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- "Not only were there corrupt practices,"
he said. "Not only was there hiding of the fact that debt was being
put off the balance sheets and profits that were reported that didn't exist,
but we're finding more than that ... what may clearly end up being security
fraud."
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- "Officers all the way to the board
of directors have some responsibility," Tauzin said, adding the report
even mentioned Ken Lay, the former Enron chairman, who is due to testify
at the Senate subcommittee hearing on Monday.
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- Houston-based Enron, once the seventh-largest
company in America, collapsed in a cloud of debt and questions about its
finances and accounting practices. It is under investigation by nine congressional
committees, the Justice and Labor departments and the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
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- An Enron internal inquiry released on
Saturday said the company inflated its profits by nearly $1 billion and
top employees took in millions of dollars "they should never have
received" through complex partnerships that played a major role in
the company's collapse.
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- While the report's findings were called
"extremely self-serving" by Andersen, the accounting firm that
was Enron's auditor for nine years, its findings have already begun to
provide fresh fodder for four days of congressional hearings beginning
on Monday.
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- The report concluded that partnerships
with names such as LJM1, LJM2 and Chewco were used to do deals meant to
hide losses, fatten profits and enrich corporate executives at the former
energy trading giant, which was President Bush's biggest political contributor.
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