Enron

My semi-defense of Enron is now out, in this weeks’ New Yorker.
   
And here is the link  to Jonathan Macey’s wonderful law review article on the Enron case, which was my inspiration for the piece.

I also have a minor challenge for aficionados of the Enron case.

Years ago, when I was at the Washington Post, one of my colleagues on the science desk—Bill Booth—called up a dozen or so Nobel Laureates in physics and asked them to explain, in plain language, the nature and significance of the Higgs Boson atomic particle. None of them could. This was at a time, mind you, when the physics community was arguing passionately for the construction of a multi-billion dollar particle accelerator to look for things like the Higgs Boson.  So it wasn’t for lack of interest. They were gung-ho for nailing the Higgs Boson. They just couldn’t explain the Higgs Boson.

Can anyone explain—in plain language—what it is Jeff Skilling and Co. did wrong?

I’m not asking for an explanation for what they did wrong as businessmen. That’s plain. They did a mountain of stupid and arrogant things. Nor is this about what Skilling and company did that was unethical or in bad faith. There’s a mountain of evidence on that too. The question is strictly a legal one: according to the way the accounting rules were written at the time, what specific transgressions were Skilling guilty of that merited twenty-four years in prison? For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that summaries must be three sentences or less.

When I was reporting the piece, I tried to get someone to answer this question. But everything ended up very Higgs Bosonian.

Comments

[SharonFling]

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[SharonFling]

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[SharonFling]

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[Arnie McKinnis]

Because I like the challenge, here's my explanation of what Skilling did that cost him 25 years of his life....

1. He Lied (some may say "deceived" just semantics)
2. He Covered It Up (Holy He11 Batman, get the paper shredder)
3. He was "un-repentant" (In his own words, "I Made People Millions")

Three points, not three sentences.

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[Jill]

I read your article which was recently published in the Australian Financial Review. I have a particular interest in your topic which eminates from questioning the growing role of the corporation in society in such a neo liberalist political environment. The issue is not with Enron in particular, it is broader than that. It relates to the unbridling of corporate power - something that has been amplified recently in australia with the most recent High Court decision ratifying the transfer of Industrial Relations power to Coporations.
Accepting that this trend is global fashion, what you raise in your article is the need to shift mindset (puzzle v mystery).
Assuming criminogenic behaviour is rife in corporation which manifests itself in a number of ways we need to develop practices which overrides greed, overrides myopic self interest, and overrides platitudes of compliance. We need to employ mechanisms to As Justice Michael Kirby said in his dissenting judgement " check the checker".
These are good thoughts to have. I am interested in what you think the next steps are.

cheers

[IncPens]

What troubles me about the Enron case is what troubled me about Michael Milken

In both cases you had newcomers trying to commoditize markets that had established price relationships. In Milken's case it was bonds, in the case of Enron it was energy.

In both cases the newcomers were crucified.

My personal opinion is that Enron and Skilling in particular paid the price for trying to marketize something that the Global Warming® crowd wants to nationalize. In other words, Enron was seeking to affix market pricing to energy, lower the prices and make money on the velocity of the money generated; Al Gore and the loony left want to create artificial scarcity and drive the prices up.

Al Gore wins, Skilling goes to jail.

[wincky]

Wouldn't the way to find the answer be to check out the court documents? I'm not sure what you expect to gain from a necessarily-vague three sentences.

You're a reporter -- dig through the docs!

[wincky]

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[Solltex]

Mr. Gladwell seems to take from Macey's article the nifty idea that the Enron case was so complicated that it's violations could at once be out in the open and still invisible, and therefore could not have been uncovered by any latter day Woodward or Bernstein.

But if you shift your perspective -- from Macey's law-and-economics perspective about market valuation and freely available information that is universally understood -- to a more humane concern about investor fraud and transparency, the thesis doesn't seem to hold up.

Anyway, thanks for entertaining these posts, Malcolm, and keep up the good work.

[Kisna]

The Higgs boson is an elementary particle that I think is the only one predicted by the standard model but not yet observed. It explains why some particles have mass and others don't. Basically, it's the piece that's missing. Think of it as a human transitional fossil. Everything says it should be there, we just haven't found it yet.

[MrPiltdown]

Though it's avoiding the original question (Malcolm's), which I think is a helpful challenge for the purposes of education, another interesting question to answer might be the following. If we have such trouble explaining the particular, fraudulent actions perpetrated by Skilling and Co., why do so many people get so emotional about the scam? Where does this outrage come from?

[Aaron Singleton]

Did anyone else notice the term accounting "rules" in the question posed by the article?

Standards (or principles as the trend is) is really a better word, indicative of the judgments involved and hence where Enron and associated parties failed at the most simplistic level.

Disclosure: I work for an accounting firm.

[Artorios]

Nice article...but why split hairs on accounting rules?

And after reading these comments I can't believe no one was able to answer your question before you wrote the article.

[h6]

It is unfortunate that even what the government and other investigators uncovered about Enron over the years is not the full story.

If the full story had been told at the time you wrote your article, you would have never written it.

[Stephi]

Nice article,iam coming to your blog after a long time. Still not surprised to c such long comments :) still noone is been able to answer ur question.

[politics forum]

Well I must say, I never thought I'd see someone defend Enron. :p

[h6]

A quick, short answer:

Skilling conspired with Fastow and others (certain banks and insiders) to strip the company's compensation plans (stole from) to cover losses on failed business deals.

There is much more to this story, but that should suffice.