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News > Companies
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Enron board: We were misled
Current and former directors of the bankrupt energy trader insist management withheld information.
May 7, 2002: 4:10 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - Current and former directors of bankrupt Enron Corp. told Congress that they too were victims of bad information from company accountants and management.

The hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations focused on the culpability of the Enron board of directors in the former energy giant's collapse.

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John Duncan, former chairman of the board's executive committee, asserted that key financial information had been withheld from the board. "I do not believe that Enron's fall would have been avoided had the board asked more questions," Duncan testified.

Norman Blake, interim chairman of the Enron board, insisted he and his colleagues did question management and did not rubber stamp management's recommendations and requests. "Unfortunately," said Blake, "I believe that we were uninformed because management and outside experts who reported to us failed to do their jobs and give us full, complete information."

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The chairman of the Senate panel, Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, bluntly told the board members that he didn't buy their explanations. "The board relinquished its role of questioner and adopted the role of facilitator. It succumbed to the Enron ether of invincibility, superiority and gamesmanship," Levin asserted.

Levin has introduced legislation to instruct the Securities and Exchange Commission to establish regulations governing the extent of accounting oversight expected of corporate boards.  Top of page






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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.