It's going to change the board from a prudential body and a restraining influence into a bunch of cheerleaders. It will give the board a strong incentive not to look too closely at the numbers. It puts directors on the same side as management. |
NYSE will move from selling a single product to hosting a variety of products linked to its strong brand name. |
One thing prosecutors can expect to get from Causey is testimony that he met with Ken Lay during that period and made him aware of how deep the plight was at Enron. By the time of Lay's return, Enron was almost like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. |
The one thing we can be confident of is that the books are cooked. We don't need to know who cooked the books to know that there is deep trouble for this company ... Bankruptcy reorganization looms and that the creditors are going to start looking for deep pockets to sue. |
The particular bank involved here has on prior occasions been caught in the same position as the unwitting intermediary, ... and it has been required by American courts under penalty of very large fines to identify who the inside trader was, who it acted for and that individual was criminally prosecuted. |
The partnership knew the firm was no longer viable so there was no reason not to roll the dice. If their survival depended on this jury they probably would have settled. |
The problem with doing that is that Lay did make some significant purchases of Enron stock and held onto all of his Enron stock except for those shares he sold pursuant to margin calls. |
The prosecutors saw the problem they were having in Arthur Anderson and so they got Congress to pass a much simpler statute. |
There has to be something that we don't know. To simply explain that they're doing this to avoid litigation assumes that they'd be willing to throw money down a rat hole. |
There is no blushing when it comes to making these demands, as long as management is only negotiating with the compensation committee and not with shareholders. |
There were no legal rules against spinning. The only question is one of ethics. And there, the question is this: Did Goldman see him as a future dispenser of future business? There's no way to know. |
This has worked out to benefit the NYSE, but totally by chance. |
This is a positive, historic event. |
This is a pretty standard book-cooking case. |
This is not a classic setting where someone gets barred for conduct as a corporate officer. Everything Martha did was in her private capacity. |