Five Years After Enron, Firms Seek Weaker Rules

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801686.html?referrer=email




Five Years After Enron, Firms Seek Weaker Rules

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; A01



Business interests, seizing on concerns that a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal has overreached, are advancing a broad agenda to limit government oversight of private industry, including making it tougher for investors to sue companies and auditors for fraud.

A group that has drawn support from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. plans to issue a report tomorrow that argues that the United States may be losing its preeminent position in global capital markets to foreign stock exchanges because of costly regulations and nettlesome private lawsuits.

Interest groups are trying to build political support to review long-standing rules that govern companies, as well as parts of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, which imposed stringent responsibilities on accountants, boards of directors and corporate executives. Some key members of Congress have recently expressed concern that U.S. companies may be over-regulated.

The renewed push to soften government oversight of business comes as the outcry begins to diminish over a series of financial scandals that erupted five years ago after Enron collapsed, costing thousands of employees their jobs and wiping out billions of investor dollars. The phony accounting at Enron and the bankruptcy of WorldCom months later prompted Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley law.

The group's report tomorrow is to advocate raising the standard for charging companies with crimes, according to sources briefed on its content who spoke on condition of anonymity because the document has not been officially released. It also is to propose shielding accountants from fraud lawsuits under certain circumstances.

Many of the group's recommendations would require congressional action, and passage of new laws is uncertain in the last two years of the Bush administration, even with a growing concern over regulation among senior lawmakers.

[calimary]

1. Oh great. Frankly, what we need hanging over the heads of these

schmucks is MORE regulation and MORE oversight, NOT LESS. Their memories may be short, but OURS are not.

Sigh... yet ANOTHER thing to nag my congressman about. GEEEEEEZ the list is long...

[Vidar]

8. Hanging a few of them would be a good start.

[Tempest]

2. D.O.A.

The incoming Democrat majority in Congress won't even consider loosening the rules.

I expect a tightening of existing rules.

[depakid]

5. Don't count on it

Quite a few Dems- including Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman, were responsible for weakening (or failing to correct) known problems in the first place. Indeed- one can even say that these Dems and ESPECIALLY the Clinton administration were responsible for these scandals.

[bluestateguy]

3. They don't control the agenda anymore

Ooooooh!!! They're issuing a report tomorrow! Ooooh I'm really scared. The only suspense will be whether Nancy Pelosi puts their little report in a shredder or in the trash can.

[Matilda]

4. When I read about these corporate bloodsuckers,

I understand how the French felt about Marie Antoinette.

[cosmicdot]

6. k&r

guess this is an 'other article'

[Demeter]

7. We Must Be Vigilant--No More Enrons!