US corporate fraud battle being won
America claims to be winning the battle against corporate fraud and restoring investor confidence in the process, following the high-profile accounting scandals of Enron and WorldCom, according to the White House.
Link: The case for a private fraud force
The Bush administration created the corporate fraud task force, in the wake of the debacles, which is headed up by Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general.
And the White House claimed yesterday that ‘the vast majority of corporate leaders are honest and ethical stewards of their shareholders and employees’.
The one-year-old task force together with a greater effort from the Securities and Exchange Commission has helped to vastly increase the number of white-collar wrongdoers pursued by the Commission, reported the Financial Times.
‘The task force has obtained over 250 corporate fraud convictions or guilty pleas, including guilty pleas or convictions of at least 25 CEOs.’ said Thompson.
Despite this, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, former chairman and chief executive of Enron, and Bernie Ebbers, ex-chief executive of WorldCom, remain unpunished.