Even as the corporation’s former chairman and chief executive were being convicted last Thursday on 25 charges of fraud and conspiracy relating to Enron’s collapse, the refrain was being uttered again about the avalanche of regulation costing business millions to implement.

That is unlikely to go away entirely even as the lobbying to tone down the Sarbanes-Oxley Act begins to gather momentum and increased support.

Even if regulation was reduced, the business world is not what it was. The failure of business ethics among the executives at Enron has damaged the public view of businessmen to the extent that will take years to recover. Last week’s verdicts will only lengthen that process.

And there are still issues in the UK to resolve. A month ago, a DTI review concluded that we do not have enough big audit firms to ensure the right level of competition. That view has, quite shockingly, taken five years to emerge from the event that caused the predicament – the demise of Andersen, dragged down as Enron went under.

We are also still wrangling over auditors’ liabilities and whether they should face criminal prosecution if they knowingly produce misleading audit reports. That’s bundled up in the company law reform bill, which has taken six years to reach its current unresolved stage.

At this pace it’s difficult to imagine when we will finally draw a line under Enron. What’s clear is that there were lessons about transparency and accountability that shouldn’t be forgotten.