|
by Nomadic Chris, 25 September 2008
A form of justice has finally been served in one of the largest financial scandals of the last few decades. Roughly seven years on from when their shares were rendered nearly worthless during the Enron - meltdown which also spelled the end of Arthur Anderson, the accounting firm - the real victims of the entire Enron affair are receiving some compensation.
Shareholders who brought Enron shares between September 9, 1997 and December 2, 2001, the day the company went bankrupt, will receive $7.2 billion under a distribution plan approved by a U.S. federal court. At the time of the controversy, Enron holdings became worthless when the company crumbled in chaotic circumstances under a mountain of fraud and cooked accounting books.
The Enron affair is still fresh in many people's minds as it marked a high water mark in corporate greed and the "greed is good" mantra of the 1980s and 1990s. In the Enron example, seemingly respectable CEOs, who some viewed as white collar crooks, had no qualms about committing serious fraud by lying to investors and continually falsifying accounts while maintaining that everything was fine with the organization. Due to the Enron case, greater regulations and laws are in place to ensure that such monolithic organization can never be embroiled in such levels of corruption and fraud again.
The long road to justice in the Enron case saw Jeff Skilling, former CEO and COO, sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in jail with a fine of $45 million while Kenneth Lay, former chairman and CEO, was also found guilty of certain charges but died before sentencing. Their legacies, despite all their earlier legitimate achievements, are now undoubtedly tied to the Enron case and this is what their families have to live with.
The point is that the people who suffer the most in these instances of corporate fraud or bankruptcies such as Lehman Brothers (due to the economic climate) is the common worker simply trying to make a living. While those in the upper echelons of these large organizations may have been in the position to attain financial security, those less senior still have to contend with issues such as mortgages, health care, etc. Organizations have to realize that their most important assets are their human resources and a mutual respect / loyalty must prevail otherwise the notion of big business and all its perceived rewards will sound less and less appealing in the future.
It is heartening to know that those in the Enron case who saw their life savings wiped out seven to eight years ago are receiving some form of compensation and will be finally be able to move on with their lives with a sense of closure while one of the men at the heart of the scandal spends the next two decades in jail.
|
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
