Former chief executive and chairman of bankrupt energy giant Enron Mr Kenneth Lay sat silently in front of the US Senate committee today as a succession of senators denounced his conduct and his decision to "take the fifth".
Senator John McCain said he regretted Mr Lay had chosen not too speak to the committee. Senator Byron Dorgan said he too was disappointed by Mr Lay's silence as "Mr Lay has a story to tell".
Mr William Powers, an Enron director and dean of the University of Texas Law School, who led an internal company investigation, said in prepared testimony that Mr Lay approved partnership arrangements by senior executives.
Mr Lay "bears significant responsibility for those flawed decisions, as well as for Enron's failure to implement sufficiently rigorous procedural controls to prevent the abuses," Mr Powers said.
Mr Lay was the most visible symbol of Enron, which was ranked as the seventh-largest US company before it crumbled into bankruptcy on December 2nd last year.
He joins five other men including Enron's former chief financial officer who have cited the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to testify in Congress' deepening inquiry.
A complex web of thousands of partnerships was used to keep some $500 million in debt off Enron's books and hidden from investors and federal securities regulators pumping up the stock price. Officials of Houston-based Enron reaped tens of millions of dollars from the partnerships.
Employees and retirees lost millions as Enron's stock price plunged from around $83 a year ago to less than a dollar in late November and they were stripped of the bulk of their retirement savings in accounts loaded with company stock. Investors large and small around the country were burned.
Lay's decision to assert his Fifth Amendment protection, announced Sunday night, came a week after he had backed out of voluntary appearances before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Financial Services Committee.
Subpoenas were issued by the two panels last week. He is scheduled to appear before the Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets on Thursday
AP
