Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron
Enron was a reputable company in 2000 and the largest dealer in natural gas within North America. However, towards the end of 2001, the stock price at Enron had gone down from $90 to mere pennies. While all this was happening, federal investigators found out that corporate fraud, greed and arrogance was the one ailing the company. Ken Lay and his accomplice Jeff Skilling were the executives perpetrating the scandal and in 2006, they were subjected to trial to answer the charges of conspiracy, insider trading and fraud.
At first, Kenneth Lay had a dream of coming up with a company that would make him good money. Being the CEO of Houston Natural Gas, at a time when price controls were abolished on natural gas, Kenneth moved quickly and joined hands with Nebraska Pipeline Company called InterNorth. They agreed to name the new company Enron. The new company started buying huge amounts of natural gases at subsidized prices, while supplying the same to big companies. The company made progress and it made a name in the market. By 1992, it was one of the most successful gas companies in the US. However, competition came in and Enron’s profits started shrinking. Despite trying numerous ways of saving the company, Enron was at the bleak of crumbling, and Ken Lay alongside other officials gave misleading information, and in most instances, provided illegal statements showing the company was doing well at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Ken Lay took over from Skilling, and instead of trying to solve the malpractices, he continued lying to the investors that Enron was putting its house in order and the future was promising. Meanwhile, the stock rice continued to go down. Upon seeing this, Ken Lay moved fast and sold 918,000 shares while still lying that the company was doing well. Desperately, he tried to merge with Dynergy, but the deal never went through. On seeing this, the company applied for bankruptcy. Following investigations, Lay was charged with committing securities fraud, two counts of wire fraud, four on securities fraud, one bank fraud, and three incidences f making false statements on a bank.
