Kenneth

Former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay on Friday agreed to hand over, within three days, more than 870 pages of what he terms “personal” correspondence to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), just moments before the commission was set to argue the case in a Washington, DC federal courtroom.

Former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay on Friday agreed to hand over, within three days, more than 870 pages of what he terms “personal” correspondence to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), just moments before the commission was set to argue the case in a Washington, DC federal courtroom.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) attacked ex-Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay in federal court this week, claiming Lay had “demonstrated a frankly whimsical approach” toward constitutional protection against self-incrimination, and asked the court to put an end to “this charade” by compelling him to turn over 870 pages of documents it has requested for nearly two years.

A federal judge in Houston has ruled that former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay and the trustee of Enron’s 401(k) retirement plan, Northern Trust Corp., may be sued under federal pension law for allegedly failing to protect the bankrupt company’s employees.

The U.S. Department of Labor is suing Enron Corp. and 21 former company officials, including former Chairman Kenneth L. Lay and CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling, for mismanaging two of Enron’s pension plans. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring the defendants to restore to the plans all losses with interest, forfeit their right to benefits from the plans and be permanently barred from serving as fiduciaries to any plan governed by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

Andrew S. Fastow, the 40-year-old former CFO of Enron, is scheduled to be arraigned in Houston on Wednesday (Nov. 7) on 78 counts that accuse him of leading the effort to conceal the company’s losses and debts, as well as inflate the former energy merchant’s trading profits. The indictment lists six different crimes, with the following charges: 36 wire fraud; 36 money laundering; 2 conspiracy to commit wire fraud; 2 conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud; 1 money laundering conspiracy; and 1 obstruction of justice.

Ten of Enron Corp.’s former top executives, including Chairman Kenneth Lay, CEO Jeffrey Skilling and CFO Andrew Fastow, now face lawsuits by creditors after the U.S. Bankruptcy Court overseeing the company’s case gave its permission. The lawsuits would be handled in Texas district court.

With embattled CFO Andrew Fastow and other corporate executives joining him, Chairman Kenneth Lay attempted to answer yet again the growing list of questions that are swirling around Enron Corp.’s third quarter announcement of equity reductions and related-party transactions. However, it seemed in the end that listeners were still hungry for more information on the Houston-based company’s balance sheet, as well as its plans to stop the slide in stock prices.

A report by internal investigators paints former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay as an absent executive who seemed to be always just returning from business trips, had precious little first-hand knowledge of the financial details of the energy trading company that he oversaw, and accepted at face-value the judgments and decisions of his right-hand men.