Founder

Memorial services for the enigma that was Kenneth Lay, 64, founder of the bankrupt Enron Corp., were to be held Sunday in Aspen, CO, where he died early last Wednesday, and in Houston this coming Wednesday. Lay, regarded by some as a good friend, devoted to his family and a leading supporter of the Houston community, was seen by others as among the worst of the robber barons, enriching himself while leaving some Enron pension and shareholders penniless. Prevailing legal opinion is that his death before he had a chance to appeal his conviction will wipe his slate clean in the eyes of the law. History will determine the rest.

The Supreme Court last Monday declined to review lower court rulings that vacated the conviction of Enron founder Kenneth Lay for fraud and conspiracy shortly after his death last July.

The Supreme Court Monday declined to review lower court rulings that vacated the conviction of Enron founder Kenneth Lay for fraud and conspiracy shortly after his death last July.

PNM Resources Inc. and Cascade Investment LLC, the personal investment vehicle of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, have agreed to create a niche power trading company to serve expanding U.S. markets throughout the Southwest, Texas and the West. Under the terms of the agreement, PNM and a Cascade subsidiary will jointly hold a 50% stake in the unregulated company, temporarily named EnergyCo LLC.

In a compelling victory for the government, Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and his former right-hand man, Jeffrey Skilling, who had at various times been COO, president and CEO of Enron, were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy on Thursday. Sentencing is set for Sept. 11, and both men could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake in Houston Tuesday vacated the conviction of Enron founder Kenneth Lay, who died in July. The decision threw out the jury’s verdict in May that Lay committed fraud and conspiracy in the months before Enron collapsed in late 2001 (see Daily GPI, July 6; May 26).

The convictions last week of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and his right hand man, former Enron CEO Jeffery Skilling are the Justice Department’s crowning achievement in a five-year battle against an era of corporate corruption and fraud that the Enron case, more than any other, came to symbolize.

Houston-based transportation giant Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) agreed in late August to be bought by a group of investors led by founder and CEO Richard Kinder for $15 billion plus the assumption of close to $7 billion of debt. If it’s successful, it will be the largest-ever private equity takeover of a pipeline company.

The estate of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay has agreed to a $12 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor over the alleged mismanagement of Enron’s pension plans. The final settlement may fall below the full amount and will depend upon the total amount of assets in the estate, government officials said. The Labor Department sued Enron and 21 former company officials, including Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, in June 2003, seeking to require the defendants to restore all of the losses with interest to two of Enron’s pension plans (see Daily GPI, June 27, 2003). The plans had been governed by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) More than 20,000 participants in Enron’s savings and employee stock ownership plans “experienced a substantial erosion of their retirement assets” when the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001, the Labor Department noted. With the agreement with Lay’s estate, Skilling is the only defendant who has not settled, the government said. Skilling is scheduled to be sentenced to federal prison in October following his criminal convictions related to his misdeeds at Enron.