Allison--
    FYI if you haven't already seen the letter.
kh
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Fawcett, Jeffery [mailto:JFawcett@Sempra.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 10:34 AM
To: Lindberg, Lorraine; 'sslindberg@duke-energy.com'; 'mema@tisd.net'; 'jkfaw@txcr.net'; 'skatz@sempratrading.com'; Plunkett, William; Clover, Michael; Goodman, Jim; Hyatt, Kevin; Huckabee, Phyllis; 'david.bradley@elpaso.com'; 'jensen13@ix.netcom.com'
Subject: Link to Sherron Watkins letter


In case you haven't seen it, I've attached a link to an ABC news site that has a scanned copy of the "smoking gun" letter written by an officer of Enron to Chairman Lay in October.  Although you'd have to be a CPA or finance-type to appreciate fully the depth of the apparent deception and subtlety of the accounting methods mentioned in her letter, I'm struck by Ms. Watkin's candor, and how she offers a truthful assessment of the landscape and even a prescription for how Enron might claw its way back from this brinksmanship.  Unfortunately, it now appears this letter came "too little, too late," and in any event, went unheeded.
 
Suffice it to say this whole debacle makes me sick and a little ashamed for having been associated (by employment) with the perpetrators of this farce.  Although the gas pipeline group I worked for apparently never took part in these shenanigans (we made our money the old fashioned way -- we earned it), as Ms. Watkins says, my "Enron work history will now be worth nothing on my resume."
 
Hard lessons have been learned by everyone, and the repercussions will be felt for years to come.  I saw this quote today in Restructuring Today and thought it was poignant:
 
What's important:  Beyond the many other issues -- including the appropriateness of time in an upscale correctional facility for people we have considered business friends -- what really matters is that the checks and balances our society has created for the world of commerce failed miserably.  It would be shocking if Auther Andersen survives as an auditor of anything.  Even so, our system needs radical improvement.

 
<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/pdf/layletter020115.pdf>