Law & Regulation

Sean M. Berkowitz and a small group of government lawyers will be in the spotlight in the Jan. 30 trial of Enron's former leaders. The case is the capstone in the cleanup after an era of business misconduct that left investors billions of dollars poorer. The outcome could shape the public's -- and history's -- judgment of how effective it was. Read More

Government lawyers who will try the case against Enron's former chief executives, Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, have signaled that they intend to spend less time befuddling jurors with talk of Enron's accounting. Read More

It has been a wrenching professional and personal reversal for Michael Kopper, who three years ago became the first Enron executive to plead guilty to criminal charges and cut a deal with the government. Mr. Kopper was also the first high-ranking Enron employee to publicly admit to lying and stealing - in his case, more than $16 million - from the company. Read More

Four years after the company's ignominious collapse, Enron's former top executives are about to head to a climactic criminal trial later this month, serving as a reminder that changes in the behavior of many American companies have been more muted than many once expected. Read More

The plea bargain last week by former Enron Chief Accounting Officer Richard Causey gives federal prosecutors the chance to present a shorter and less technical case against former company Chairman Kenneth Lay and former President Jeffrey Skilling. The pair's trial on conspiracy, fraud and other charges is scheduled to start in Houston on Jan. 30. Read More

Prosecutors intend to argue that former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling attempted to deceive the Securities and Exchange Commission in a deposition he gave soon after the company's bankruptcy about his reason for selling 500,000 shares of Enron stock, according to a motion filed in a Houston federal court Tuesday. Read More

Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian who grew up in childhood poverty, has won the Bolivian presidential elections. He is part of a wave of leftists taking power in Latin America and challenging multinational corporations. Read More

The former chief accounting officer of Enron pleaded guilty today to a single felony charge of securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, giving a significant lift to the government's case against the two leading figures in the scandal over Enron's collapse. Read More

West African cotton farmers are among those hardest hit by government subsidized corporate agriculture. This week in Hong Kong, trade ministers from the 148 members of the World Trade Organization meet to discusss this and other global free trade issues. Read More

A grainy video (download here) of private contractors shooting at civilian cars on Iraqi streets poses a difficult question: how should the military security industry be regulated? Do they have a role in peacekeeping or are they part of the problem? Read More