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Enron-driven reforms are unraveling

By Toby Lucich

Enron was the beginning, and now it's the end. The company's collapse in late 2001 alerted the investing public to the magnitude of corporate fraud. We realized no haven was safe.
It meant that even the biggest of companies, the bluest of blue chip stocks could be vulnerable to the greed and hubris that lurked within its corporate offices.

After Enron, attitudes began to change. Congress enacted sweeping changes aimed at strengthening internal controls and making top executives more accountable. Enron's victims sued its bankers, recovering some $7 billion in settlements. Now, even as the process begins for distributing that money, the reforms designed to protect investors from another Enronlike scandal are unraveling.

After six years as the avatar of reform, the lessons of Enron are being rolled back, the consequences overlooked, history rewritten to offer an air of legitimacy to the vacuous deals born in Smith Street hubris.

Enron-driven reforms are unraveling

Full post as published by inside Sarbanes Oxley on January 18, 2008 (boomark / email).