エンロン劇場の脇役が表舞台に！

無傷で来た弁護士業界も今回は逃れられない？

　　　　　　　　　 　　　　（ビジネス・ウィーク紙）

Lawyers: Enron's Last Mystery?

エンロン劇場では、会計事務所が破綻し、融資銀行が損害賠償を支払い、ケン・レイ、スキリングといった経営者にもいよいよ有罪判決が下りそうです。不祥事件で重要な脇役であった弁護士はこれまで無傷で来ていますが・・・・・・。

Was Enron’s law firm as blind to the company’s shenanigans as it maintains? Internal messages reviewed by BusinessWeek suggest the firm doubted the legitimacy of some of Enron’s business practices

Amid all the carnage that has surrounded Enron's collapse, one player in the drama has remained remarkably unscathed: Vinson & Elkins, the giant Houston law firm that played a central role advising the company throughout its spectacular rise and fall. Accounting firm Arthur Andersen is dead, JPMorgan Chase (JPM ) has spent $2.2 billion settling a shareholder fraud lawsuit filed in a Houston federal court, a handful of other banks and outside Enron directors have coughed up nearly $5 billion more, and yet V&E has not even had a slap on the wrist. Not a single lawyer at the firm has faced professional misconduct charges by the Texas bar, the firm has yet to pay a penny in damages, and Joseph Dilg, the partner who oversaw the Enron account, is now V&E's managing partner. In 2005, it became the first Texas law firm in which average partner compensation broke $1 million.

But the firm's Teflon（タフな、スキャンダルに強い） days may be coming to an end. Enron's bankruptcy trustee is negotiating to settle claims with V&E for $30 million, BusinessWeek has learned. As part of the deal, the law firm will also drop its claim for $3.9 million in legal fees billed to Enron before the company went out of business, a small fraction of the $162 million the firm charged Enron from 1997 to 2001. Although the biggest fish at Enron, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted in a Houston courtroom on May 25, the Securities & Exchange Commission is continuing to investigate the advice that V&E and other outside law firms gave the company. And in the same class action in which they have targeted the banks, plaintiffs' lawyers are preparing to unleash a new volley of evidence on June 13 to support allegations that V&E should be liable for some of the $40 billion in investor losses resulting from the energy giant's collapse.

The legal filing will shed light on one of the last remaining mysteries in the Enron drama: the role played by the company's main outside law firm. Were V&E's lawyers co-conspirators? Or were they merely scribes who unknowingly drafted documents that helped Enron fleece its shareholders? These questions have been hard to answer because only a small portion of V&E's handiwork has been made public. The firm insists it did nothing wrong and has long maintained that its attorneys played no role in helping Lay, Skilling & Co. perpetrate the most sweeping corporate fraud in recent history. （後略）

独断的コメント：

日米を問わず、企業不祥事で弁護士が処罰されることは稀ですが、ここにきてエンロン様ご愛用だった弁護士事務所がクラス・アクションで敗れる可能性が出てきています。

この弁護士事務所も無限連帯責任を逃れるために、パートナー制から有限責任組織に変更していますが、賠償保険として確保している150百万ドルもクラス・アクション対策に雇った弁護士への高額の支払いで余り残っていないようです。

更に興味のある方は、　　　　　　↓

http://www.businessweek.com/print/investor/content/may2006/pi20060531_972686.htm

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