A federal judge in Houston is considering a proposal to schedule October 2005 as the beginning of civil trials against Enron Corp., its former executives and investment firms. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon had put all of the Enron-related lawsuits on hold until she had reviewed the defendants’ requests to dismiss them.

Attorneys proposed Thursday that they could produce nearly 100 million documents by the end of 2003. They also proposed conducting nearly 500 depositions next year. However, Harmon still must rule on those proposals.

The lawsuits are led by the University of California, the lead plaintiff in a $25 billion claim. The consolidated complaint now includes at least nine financial institutions, two law firms, more than 30 former Enron executives and former accountant Arthur Andersen LLP. The lawsuit alleges that the group defrauded investors in the years before Enron declared bankruptcy through a series of misleading accounting methods, inflated profits and debt.

Harmon last year had set a trial date of December 2003, but the lawsuits continued to grow. She then put all of the lawsuits on hold to rule on the defendants’ requests to either dismiss the cases or release them from litigation. Then, last December, she denied most of the defendants’ motions to be dismissed from the case (see Daily GPI, Dec. 24, 2002).

Two months ago, she and Manhattan federal Bankruptcy Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez, who is handling the overall Enron bankruptcy, also ordered several parties to attempt settlements through a mediator (see Daily GPI, May 30). That work is ongoing, according to the court.

Enron apparently reached a tentative settlement with its creditors in June, according to court documents, and is scheduled to file its reorganization plan before Gonzalez’s court in New York on Friday (see Daily GPI, July 1).

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