More famous companies are part of the Enron scandal

The scandal around the bankruptcy of the American energy giant Enron is still developing. Of course, the attention paid to it has weakened, especially in light of recent world events, but there are more and more details coming out about Enron's activities and the business links.

Arthur Andersen, a very well-known auditing company, has suffered as a result of the investigation regarding Enron’s bankruptcy. The observers do not doubt that this company will not go through legal proceedings. The connection of the mentioned auditing company to the affairs of Enron’s managers is so obvious that the auditors can hardly hope for a positive outcome of the litigation. At least, several European and Asian divisions of Arthur Andersen have already announced that they no longer have anything in common with their former management in New York.

However, it seems that it will be not only the auditors who will suffer. Enron’s investors and shareholders claimed that they are going to charge several of the largest banks of criminal responsibility, for example, J. P. Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co, Credit Suisse, and First Boston. News agencies reported that adequate claims would be sent to court the coming Monday.

J.P. Morgan and Citigroup are charged of concealing detailed information about the financial state of Enron that this banks possessed. Two other banks, as the claimants believe, were not objective in their evaluation of the concern's shares when they were advertising Enron. Furthermore, the claimants’ lawyers assert that they are ready to call to account any companies that have ever had links with Enron.

It is not hard to understand the shareholders and investors: they lost billions of dollars after the company went bankrupt. However, it will be hard to prove that objective information about Enron’s financial position was concealed deliberately. The managers of the company managed to destroy many of documents on the subject. Maybe the same has been done by others companies and banks that were participants in the story. In any case, Arthur Andersen was one such company.

Nevertheless, the court proceedings concerning Enron’s case are still gathering pace. Maybe, there will soon be more famous names in the picture.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov