vze3xykq wrote: > > Now there's a new twist. How, exactly, did Ken Lay bilk his employees? > > Kevin T. > Should I start naming the ways you're wrong now, or let you reply?
The argument would probably go along the lines: 1. The employee retirement accounts were *very* over-invested (IIRC, over 50% of the total money investmented) in Enron stock. Also (IIRC), there are reports that common (the non upper-executive) employees were unable to excersize their employee-incentive stock options. This happened during Lay's tenure as CEO. 2. Enron filed bankruptcy due to losing billions of dollars in bad investments. The scandal hit so suddenly because they used creative accounting methods to hide the losses for as long as possible (the investments were held as subsidiaries which eventually posted the losses. However, Enron itself didn't have to post the losses until the next yearly report AFTER the subsidiaries posted their losses on their respective yearly reports. This would have happened during the 2002 annual report season if Enron hadn't filed bankruptcy first.) This situation developed and happened during Lay's tenure as CEO. 3. As soon as Enron filed bankruptcy, all of the Enron stock held by the employee retirement accounts, as well as any held by investors around the world lost most (90%+) of their value. This happened as a result of Lay's decisions. 4. There are several allegations regarding Lay's personal financial gains (selling stock options, the contents of his golden parachute when he resigned, etc.) which will (had better be) resolved in criminal court. While he might not have personally and directly taken money away from Enron employees, his actions did cause them to lose most of their retirment savings without any ability to avoid the loss, with the exception of never participating in the retirement plan in the first place. -- Matt
