Enron, the bankrupt energy trading company whose glass towers dominate downtown Houston, for years gave away money to politicians. Today the situation is reversed, and a number are making at least a token effort to give some of it back.
The donations have become politicial liabilities as six committees of Congress prepare to hold hearings on Enron, amid allegations of insider trading and corrupt accounting.
Seven in 10 of the House Commerce Committee have taken Enron money, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics. One of them, Senator Jean Carnahan, returned a $1,000 donation, as will House Minority Leader Dick Gephart. Politicians bankrolled by Enron are prominent on the powerful Senate Banking Committee that will hold hearings on February 12th.
Texas Senator Phil Gramm, a ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, received $97,000 and has a unique conflict of interest. His wife Wendy has been sub-poenaed to testify as an Enron board member who joined the company five weeks after stepping down as chairwoman of Texas's Commodity Futures Trading Commission which had exempted Enron from federal regulation on some commodities trading.
Texas Democrat Ken Bentsen, the top House beneficiary of Enron funds with $43,000, said he would return some to help former Enron employees whose savings were devastated. Senate Commerce Committee member, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, received $99,500 dollars from Enron.
Direct connections between donations and favours are rare, as "Enron was trying to buy non-interference by the government", said Mr Alan Bernstein, a political writer for the Houston Chronicle. "The irony is that the first day they stubbed their toe, they came crying to the government for help," he added, referring to Enron chief executive Mr Kenneth Lay's distress calls to Washington as the company self-destructed.
Senator Joseph Lieberman said the timing of a memo from Enron auditors Arthur Andersen directing the destruction of documents raised the serious possibility of obstruction of justice. It was dated October 12th, 2001, when Andersen and Enron executives "knew that Enron was in real trouble and the roof was about to collapse on them," said Mr Lieberman, who will chair a Senate committee investigating Enron.
Trading in Enron shares, which have fallen from £90 to less than $1, were suspended on Wall Street yesterday pending the lodging by the company of certain document with a New York bankruptcy hearing.
The Swiss investment bank UBS Warburg is buying Enron's power trading business. Enron's energy trading business generated about 90 per cent of the company's $101 billion in revenue in 2000.
