An Enron employee warned the company's chairman of problems surrounding the company, it has been claimed.
In August 2001 the worker warned the chairman of accounting problems and a "veil of secrecy" around certain partnerships that later contributed to the collapse of the world's largest energy trader, congressional investigators said last night.
"I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals," the employee wrote, according to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Mr Billy Tauzin and investigations subcommittee head Mr James Greenwood.
In a sign that employees were worried long before Enron filed the largest bankruptcy in US history on December 2nd, the female global finance unit employee wrote to Enron Chairman Mr Kenneth Lay about several concerns, Mr Tauzin and Mr Greenwood said.
The committee found the letter by combing through thousands of Enron documents as part of one of six congressional probes of the company's collapse. The Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation of Enron. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Labor Department are also investigating.
Enron, once ranked Number 7 on the Fortune 500 list of large corporations, fell in just weeks from Wall Street stardom to bankruptcy court, throwing thousands out of work and stirring controversy from Washington to Wall Street.
Trading in shares of Enron was halted on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning at 67 cents a share, off an August 2000 high of $90.56.