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The Chronicle's continuing Enron hypocrisy
Being generally an optimistic sort, I keep thinking that the financial crisis of the past year or so will eventually prompt the Houston Chronicle to reconsider its generally biased coverage of the demise of Enron over the past seven...
Uncommon common sense to close out the year
Several items making uncommonly good sense in financial matters caught my eye on the final day of the year. First, Don Boudreaux noticed the following letter to the Financial Times from Larry Ribstein's colleague at the University of Illinois College...
Previewing the Skilling appeal
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling filed a motion for bail pending appeal earlier in the week (download a copy here; Carrie Johnson's WaPo article on the motion is here) and, in so doing, previews the major issues that he will...
Hope for sanity in sentencing of business executives?
Although just one case, at least one federal judge has concluded that the resentment and scapegoating that has driven the criminalization of business during the post-Enron era has gone too far. In this thoughtful sentencing memorandum relating to the conviction...
Foreshadowing a key issue in the Lay-Skilling appeal
In a strong indication that he believes that the matter raises important appellate issues, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake issued this this 22-page opinion late last week in the criminal case of former key Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff...
Speaking of that key evidentiary issue . . .
Peter Lattman posts this interesting piece on the oral argument in the Bernie Ebbers appeal that could well impact the key evidentiary issue in the ongoing trial of former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. In the Ebbers appeal,...
Emshwiller's Enron surprise
John Emshwiller of the Wall Street Journal ($) weighs in today on the defense strategy of former Enron key executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling for their upcoming criminal trial, and he is surprised to find that Lay and Skilling...
Cashing in on criminalizing business
Eliot Spitzer makes no bones about using his position as New York attorney general to promote his campaign for governor, but he certainly isn't the only lawyer cashing in on the trend of criminalizing business to further one's career. This...
NY Times on the sad case of Dan Bayly
Landon Thomas, Jr. of the New York Times has written this major Sunday Times article about the sad case of Daniel Bayly, the former head of Merrill Lynch's global investment banking division who is presently serving a two and a...
Steffy on the sad case of Jamie Olis
Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy -- who blogs over at Full Disclosure -- does not generally share my view that government has gone overboard in the post-Enron era of criminalizing merely questionable business transactions. However, when it comes to the...
More on the criminalization-of-business lottery
Well, Bernie Ebbers is being allowed to remain free from his effective life sentence during the appeal of his conviction of defrauding WorldCom investors. The basis of the decision to allow Mr. Ebbers to remain free is that there are...
The high price of asserting innocence
A frequent topic on this blog has been the government's questionable tactic of bludgeoning business executives into plea bargains by playing on the executive's fear of a draconian prison sentence (often an effective life sentence) if the executive has the...
More thoughts on the Merrill Lynch defendants' Nigerian Barge appeal
Having tended to my "day" job at the end of last week, I wanted to pass along some further thoughts on the lively discussion that erupted between Vic Fleischer, Larry Ribstein, other commentators, and me last week in regard to...
A crushing defeat for the Enron Task Force
In yet another stunning blow in a series of setbacks to the Enron Task Force, the jury in the Enron Broadband trial returned late this afternoon and advised U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore that they had acquitted three of the...
Ebbers receives an effective life sentence
Former WorldCom CEO 63 year old Bernard J. Ebbers received a 25 year sentence for his conviction on charges of securities fraud, conspiracy and seven counts of filing false reports with regulators relating to an a multi-billion accounting fraud...
Scrushy is acquitted
Former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard M. Scrushy was found not guilty today by the jury in the trial over over his alleged participation in a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at the huge health services company. Along with the sentencings in...
Meanwhile, over at AIG and Berkshire . . .
And while the business and legal worlds focus on the implications of the Ebbers conviction, this NY Times article reports on the uneasiness at Berkshire Hathaway as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer carves another notch in his anti-business...
The "honest idiot" defense fails
Bernie Ebbers' honest idiot defense fails as he is convicted on all counts. The conviction is further bad news for former Enron chairman Ken Lay and former CEO Jeff Skilling who are claiming -- as did Mr. Ebbers -- that...
Ebbers case goes to the jury
The "honest idiot" case goes to the jury today. As an aside, it is always remarkable to me the amount of time that both the prosecution and the defense take in presenting closing arguments in these high profile criminal cases....
The regulatory-induced syndrome of irrational exuberance
Temple University mathematics professor John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy (Hill 2001) and the more recent A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market (Basic 2003), wrote this insightful Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed yesterday in which he describes how even a...
Ebbers is going to testify
In the key strategic decision of the criminal trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers, Reid Weingarten advised U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones on Friday that he intends to call his client Mr. Ebbers to the stand on Monday. The...
Ebbers criminal trial winding down?
In a somewhat shocking development to a world conditioned to prolonged white collar criminal prosecutions, the prosecution in the criminal trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers announced yesterday that it will not be calling any further witnesses from the...
A lawyer you will be hearing about in the Enron case soon
This NY Times article profiles Reid Weingarten, the Washington, D.C.-based criminal defense attorney who is currently representing former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers in his criminal trial. Mr. Weingarten is also representing former Enron chief accountant Richard Causey in his criminal...
The strategy of going negative
This Washington Post article does a good job of analyzing the strategy of impeaching the credibility of an adverse witness with the witness' prior bad acts, which is not always as effective a trial strategy as it would seem on...
The honest idiot defense
In this article, NY Times business columnist Floyd Norris notes the common defense that the various indicted CEO's of the business world are using these days to defend themselves against criminal charges -- i.e., that the executive was "honestly ignorant"...
The importance of good timing in going bust
This NY Times article provides a fine report on the demise of Global Crossing, Ltd., the telecommunications company that went down under suspicious circumstances at the same time as Enron Corp. was cratering. However, unlike Enron, the Justice Department established...
If Ebbers Masterminded the Fraud, Why Didn't He Sell More Stock?
Floyd Norris is one of the most insightful business reporters for the NY Times. In this column today, Mr. Norris raises the issue that, if former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers really masterminded an elaborate fraud at WorldCom, why didn't he...
WorldCom's Ebbers indicted, CFO Sullivan plea bargains
Bernie J. Ebbers, the former CEO and and co-founder of WorldCom Inc., was indicted today on three criminal charges that accuse him of directing and participating in one of the biggest frauds in the history of American business. Although Scott...
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