House seeks Wall Street's Enron info
Letters to top Wall St. firms, rating agencies ask for details about dealings with bankrupt energy trader.
March 6, 2002: 5:38 p.m. ET
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A congressional committee sent letters Wednesday to Wall Street's top investment banks and rating agencies asking for information on services they provided for Enron, their investments in Enron and its partnerships, as well as details of communications.
The letters were sent by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to the top executives of investment banking firms Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, CS First Boston, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, UBS Paine Webber and Wachovia.
The committee is asking for specific information and answers to detailed questions by March 20.
At the top of the list is a request for details of all security underwriting and advisory services provided by the firms to Enron and its partnerships since 1997.
The committee also wants to know if the firms invested in or provided financing for any Enron SPEs (special purpose entities) or related off-the-books partnerships. If they did, the letters ask for the details.
Enron stands accused of using off-the-books partnerships to hide $1 billion in debt, which ultimately led to the financial collapse of the once mighty energy trader.
The letters ask the firms to provide information about promises or suggestions from Enron or employees of LJM Cayman -- one of the SPEs in question -- that they would receive future Enron business if they invested in the LJM partnerships or would fail to get business if they did not invest in the partnerships.
In testimony before the committee, former Enron executives Jeff McMahon and Sherron Watkins said Enron promised the bankers that they would receive future business if they invested in LJM, while also threatening to take business away if they failed to invest.
The committee also asks the firms to provide all records of communications from 1997 to the present between Merrill employees and several former executives of Enron, including former CEOs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.
Letters also were sent to the CEOs of rating agencies Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service, and Fitch.
Those letters ask for details on: how the companies rated Enron; whether Enron withheld information from them; whether investment bankers tried to influence the ratings companies in their judgment of Enron; and whether the rating agencies provided consulting services to Enron. 
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