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VIII. RELATED-PARTY DISCLOSURE ISSUES

Enron, like all public companies, was required by the federal securities laws to describe its related-party transactions to shareholders and to members of the investing public in several different disclosure documents: the periodic reports filed with the SEC on a quarterly and annual basis, and the annual proxy solicitation materials sent to shareholders. We found significant issues concerning Enron's public disclosures of related-party transactions.

Overall, Enron failed to disclose facts that were important for an understanding of the substance of the transactions. The Company did disclose that there were large transactions with entities in which the CFO had an interest. Enron did not, however, set forth the CFO's actual or likely economic benefits from these transactions and, most importantly, never clearly disclosed the purposes behind these transactions or the complete financial statement effects of these complex arrangements. The disclosures also asserted without adequate foundation, in effect, that the arrangements were comparable to arm's-length transactions. We believe that the responsibility for these inadequate disclosures is shared by Enron Management, the Audit and Compliance Committee of the Board, Enron's in-house counsel, Vinson & Elkins, and Andersen.

A. Standards for Disclosure of Related-Party Transactions

The most basic standards governing Enron's disclosure to investors and to the market are familiar: companies must not make untrue statements of material fact, or omit material facts necessary to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances in which they were made, not misleading. Specific guidelines also govern disclosure of

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transactions with related parties in proxy statements and periodic SEC filings, and in financial statement footnotes.

Item 404 of SEC Regulation S-K sets out the requirements for disclosing related-party transactions in the non-financial statement portions of SEC filings, including proxy statements and the annual reports on Form I O-K. (As many public companies do, Enron addressed the disclosure requirements of Item 404 in its I O-Ks by incorporating the discussion from the proxy statement by reference.) Item 404(a) requires disclosure of, among other things, transactions exceeding $60,000 in which an executive officer of the company has a material interest, "naming such person and indicating the person's relationship to the registrant, the nature of such person's interest in the transaction(s), the amount of such transaction(s) and, where practicable, the amount of such person's interest in the transaction(s)." The instructions to this section provide: "The materiality of any interest is to be determined on the basis of the significance of the information to investors in light of all the circumstances of the particular case. The importance of the interest to the person having the interest, the relationship of the parties to the transaction with each other and the amount involved in the transactions are among the factors to be considered in determining the significance of the information to investors."

Public companies must also provide financial statements in periodic quarterly and annual SEC filings. Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 57 sets forth the requirements under generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP") concerning disclosures of related-party transactions in financial statements. Simply put, the financial statements must disclose material related-party transactions, and must include certain specific information: "(a) The nature of the relationship(s) involved; (b) A description of

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the transactions, . . . and such other information deemed necessary to an understanding of the effects of the transactions on the financial statements; (c) The dollar amounts of transactions . . . [and] (d) Amounts due from or to related parties . . . ." The standard provides that, "[i]n some cases, aggregation of similar transactions by type of related party may be appropriate," and that, "[i]f necessary to the understanding of the relationship, the name of the related party should be disclosed." SEC Regulation S-X, § 4-08(k), provides that "[r]elated party transactions should be identified and the amounts stated on the face of the balance sheet, income statement, or statement of cash flows." These disclosures are typically provided in a footnote to the consolidated financial statements.

Following the original release of FAS 57, public companies and their professional advisors and auditors have received little guidance from the accounting profession or the SEC concerning how these standards should be applied to disclosures of particular types of transactions. Enron Management and its auditors and outside counsel were required to make many judgment calls in deciding what entities qualified as a "related party," and when and how to report transactions with them. Indeed, in light of the Enron experience, the "Big-5" accounting firms petitioned the SEC on December 31, 2001, for guidance in preparing disclosures in annual reports in several areas, including "relationships and transactions on terms that would not be available from clearly independent third parties." On January 22, 2002, the SEC issued a statement urging companies, among other things, to "consider describing the elements of the transactions that are necessary for an understanding of the transactions' business purpose and economic substance, their effects on the financial statements, and the special risks or contingencies arising from these

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transactions." The SEC emphasized, however, that its guidance was meant "to suggest statements that issuers should consider in meeting their current disclosure obligations" and "does not create new legal requirements, nor does it modify existing legal requirements" (emphasis added).

B. Enron's Disclosure Process

Enron's related-party disclosures in its proxy statements, as well as in the financial statement footnotes in its periodic reports, resulted from collaborative efforts among Enron's Senior Management, employees in the legal, accounting, investor relations, and business units, and outside advisors at Andersen and Vinson & Elkins. Nevertheless, it appears that no one outside of Enron Global Finance, the entity principally responsible for the related-party transactions, exercised significant supervision or control over the disclosure process concerning these transactions.

The initial drafts of the footnotes to the financial statements in the periodic reports on Forms 1 O-Q and I O-K were prepared by Enron corporate accountants in the Financial Reporting Group. The Director of Financial Reporting circulated drafts to a large group of people, including Rex Rogers, an Enron Associate General Counsel responsible for securities law matters, in-house counsel at Enron Global Finance, the transaction support groups who worked on the transactions at issue, the Investor Relations Department, and Vinson & Elkins and Andersen. Vinson & Elkins informed us that they may not have seen all of the filings in advance. The Financial Reporting Group collected comments from the various reviewers, made changes, and distributed revised versions. This process was repeated until all outstanding issues had been resolved. We were told that Causey,

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Enron's Chief Accounting Officer, was the final arbiter of unresolved differences among the various contributors to the financial reporting process. Causey told us that, while he signed the public filings and met with Andersen engagement partner Duncan to resolve certain issues, he relied on the Financial Reporting Group, lawyers, and transaction support staff for the disclosures. The Audit and Compliance Committee reviewed drafts of the financial statement footnotes and discussed them with Causey. During the relevant period, Skilling reviewed the periodic filings after the accountants and lawyers had agreed on the proposed disclosures. Causey signed the Forms 10-Q and 10-K as the Chief Accounting Officer. All of the Directors and Fastow signed the I O-Ks as well.

Preparation of the related-party transaction disclosures followed this general pattern, with one major exception: we were told that, because the related-party transactions were often extremely complex, the Enron Corp. accountants and lawyers responsible for financial reporting relied heavily on-and generally deferred to-the officers and employees in Enron Global Finance who were closer to the transactions and actually knew the details. The Financial Reporting Group circulated drafts of the related-party footnotes internally, and both Andersen and Vinson & Elkins commented on these disclosures. Causey, who was charged by the Board with approving the transactions with the LJM partnerships, paid attention to the related-party transaction footnotes, and we were told that he made the final decisions on their contents. Skilling said that he consistently looked at the discussions of related-party transactions.

While accountants took the lead in preparing the financial statement footnote disclosures, lawyers played a more central role in preparing the proxy statements, including the disclosures of the related-party transactions. This process was organized by

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Associate General Counsel Rogers and lawyers working for him, with substantial advice from Vinson & Elkins. James Derrick, Enron's General Counsel, reviewed the final drafts to look for obvious errors, but otherwise had little involvement with the relatedparty proxy statement disclosures. He said that he relied on his staff, Vinson & Elkins, and Andersen to make sure the disclosures were correct and complied with the rules. Enron's in-house counsel say they relied on advice from Vinson & Elkins in deciding whether the proposed disclosures were adequate, particularly with respect to related-party transactions.

As with the financial statement footnotes, drafts of the proxy statements were circulated repeatedly to a wide group. The Financial Reporting Group checked the draft proxy statements to make sure that the amounts reported in the proxies were supported by the information in the financial statements, but generally was not otherwise involved in the drafting. Senior Management and the Board of Directors were given an opportunity to comment on proxy statement drafts, and they appear to have paid comparatively more attention to the proxy statements than to the financial statements in the periodic reports. We were told that members of the Board focused particular attention to the disclosures about themselves, and were not directed specifically to the related-party disclosures by Management. Lay was generally involved in the disclosure process only to the same extent as the outside directors.

There was no systematic procedure in place for ensuring identification of all transactions with related parties that needed to be disclosed in financial statement footnotes or proxy statements. In the case of the financial statement footnotes, the Financial Reporting Group included transactions of which it was aware in the first draft,

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and relied on the comment process to identify any transactions that had not been included. For the proxy statements, the lawyers and accountants with Enron Global Finance generally provided the lists of relevant transactions. It does not appear that the LJM Approval Sheets or files in the legal department were consulted to ensure that all of the transactions in the period were covered by the related-party disclosures (although, as noted above, it also does not appear that the Approval Sheets were complete).

C. Proxy Statement Disclosures

1. Enron's Disclosures

The "Certain Transactions" sections of Enron's proxy statements in 2000 and 2001 included disclosures of transactions with the LJM partnerships.

Enron described the establishment of LJMI and LJM2 in its May 2000 proxy statement. Each was described as "a private investment company that primarily engages in acquiring or investing in energy and communications related investments." Concerning LJM1, Enron disclosed that "Andrew S. Fastow, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Enron, is the managing member of LJM1's general partner. The general partner of LJM l is entitled to receive a percentage of the profits of LJM1 in excess of the general partner's proportion of the total capital contributed to LJMI, depending upon the performance of the investments made by LJMI." Essentially the same disclosure was repeated with respect to LJM2. The proxy statement did not give the amount of compensation Fastow had received, or specify the compensation formula in any more detail.

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The 2000 proxy statement discussed the Rhythms transaction with LJMI by describing the details of the "effect" of "a series of transactions involving a third party and LJM Cayman, L.P." The disclosures identified the number of shares of Enron stock and other instruments that changed hands, but did not describe any purpose behind the transactions. The disclosures said that, "[i]n connection with the transactions, LJMI agreed that Mr. Fastow would have no pecuniary interest in such Enron Common Stock and would be restricted from voting on matters related to such shares."

The proxy statement next disclosed that, "[i]n the second half of 1999, Enron entered into eight transactions with LJM I and LJM2," and then described them in general terms:

In six of these transactions, LJM l and/or LJM2 acquired various debt and equity securities of certain Enron subsidiaries and affiliates that were directly or indirectly engaged in the domestic and/or international energy business. The aggregate consideration agreed to be paid to Enron pursuant to these six transactions was approximately $119.3 million. In the seventh transaction, LJM2 paid $12.9 million for an equity interest in an Enron securitization vehicle (that owned approximately $300 million of merchant assets) and loaned $19.6 million to such vehicle. In the eighth transaction, LJM2 borrowed $38.5 million from an Enron affiliate, which loan was outstanding at year end.

The 2000 proxy statement also included representations concerning the arm's length nature of the transactions with LJM. Concerning LJM 1, Enron stated that "[m]anagement believes that the terms of the transactions were reasonable and no less favorable than the terms of similar arrangements with unrelated third parties." With respect to LJM2, Enron included the same representation and added that "[t]hese transactions occurred in the ordinary course of Enron's business and were negotiated on an arm's-length basis with senior officers of Enron other than Mr. Fastow."

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Enron's 2001 proxy statement again identified Fastow as the managing member of LJM2's general partner and repeated the assertion that the transactions with LJM2 "occurred in the ordinary course of Enron's business and were negotiated on an arm's length basis with senior officers of Enron other than Mr. Fastow." The transactions themselves were discussed in two groups, and for each Enron combined a general description of the purpose of the transactions with an aggregated summary of the terms. Concerning the acquisition by LJM2 of Enron assets, the proxy statement said:

During 2000, [Enron] entered into a number of transactions with [IJM2] ... primarily involving either assets Enron had decided to sell or risk management activities intended to limit Enron's exposure to price and value fluctuations with respect to various assets .... In ten of these transactions LJM2 acquired various debt and equity securities, or other ownership interests, from Enron that were directly or indirectly engaged in the domestic and/or international energy or communication business, while in one transaction UM2 acquired dark fiber from an Enron subsidiary. The aggregate consideration to be paid to Enron pursuant to these eleven transactions was approximately $213 million. Also during 2000, LJM2 sold to Enron certain merchant investment interests for a total consideration of approximately $76 million. Concerning the derivative transactions with LJM2, the proxy statement said:

Also, during 2000, Enron engaged in other transactions with LJM2 intended to manage price and value risk with regard to certain merchant and similar assets by entering into derivatives, including swaps, puts, and collars. As part of such risk management transactions, LJM2 purchased equity interests in four structured finance vehicles for a total of approximately $127 million. Enron, in turn, contributed a combination of assets, Enron notes payable, restricted shares of outstanding Enron stock (and the restricted right to receive additional Enron shares) in exchange for interests in the vehicles. Enron and LJM2 subsequently entered into derivative transactions through these four vehicles with a combined notional amount of approximately $2.1 billion.

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2. Adequacy of Disclosures

Given the circumstances in which Enron now finds itself, it is difficult to avoid coloring a review of prior disclosure documents with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. We have tried to avoid that impulse. Indeed, there were substantial disclosures regarding most of the related-party transactions at issue here, including their magnitude and even some of the "mechanics" of the transactions. Any reader of those disclosures should have recognized that these arrangements were complex, the dollar amounts involved were substantial, and the transactions were significant for evaluating the Company's financial performance. Nevertheless, the disclosures were fundamentally inadequate.

Fastow's Compensation. The failure to set forth Fastow's compensation from the IJM transactions and the process leading to that decision raise substantial issues. Item 404 of Regulation S-K required the disclosure "where practicable" of "the amount of [Fastow's] interest in the transactions." We have been told that there was significant discussion, both within Enron Management and with outside advisors, about whether Enron could avoid disclosing Fastow's compensation from the related parties in the face of that fairly clear language. The consensus of people involved in drafting the proxy disclosures was to accommodate the strong desire of Fastow (and others) to avoid disclosure if there was a legitimate basis to do so.

For the 2000 proxy statement, the issue was discussed among members of Enron's Senior Management, its in-house counsel, its lawyers at Vinson & Elkins, and Andersen. In the end, the proxy statement simply noted that the general partner of LJM I and LJM2, of which Fastow was the managing member, was entitled to a share of the

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profits in excess of its proportional capital investment in the partnership. The rationale, as memorialized in a memorandum written by Jordan Mintz, the General Counsel of Enron Global Finance, was that the "where practicable" language of Item 404 (referred to above) provided the basis for not setting forth the amount of Fastow's compensation from ]LJM. Because the majority of transactions between Enron and LJM1 or LJM2 were "open" during the proxy reporting period-that is, the ultimate and final determination of obligations and payments remained uncertain-the in-house and outside counsel concluded it was not "practicable" to determine what Fastow had earned as the managing member of the general partner.

The same rationale applied to the multiple "open" transactions in place at the time the 2001 proxy statement was prepared, although it was acknowledged that some of the transactions had closed in 2000 or early 2001 and the rationale would have little force once most of the transactions closed. The lawyers apparently did little if any investigation into what proportion of the transactions remained open at the time of the 2001 proxy statement filing.

The Rhythms transaction had terminated in early 2000, however, and the lawyers understood that Fastow had received compensation from LJM l for that transaction. Enron therefore needed a different basis or theory to support the decision not to disclose. The Enron lawyers and Vinson & Elkins began with the assumption that the 2000 proxy statement had already met all disclosure requirements related to the Rhythms transaction, even without reference to the economic interest of Fastow. The 2001 proxy would have covered the compensation Fastow received from the unwind in 2000 of the Rhythms position. The lawyers reasoned that the Rhythms transaction had terminated in 2000

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66pursuant to terms allowed for under the original agreement" entered into in 1999. Because the prior proxy statement had addressed the disclosure requirements relating to the Rhythms transaction, they decided that no financial information regarding what Fastow earned in the transaction had to be disclosed in 2001-notwithstanding that it was now more "practicable" to do so.

It turns out that the factual premise on which the lawyers based this analysis in the Memorandum-that "there was no new transaction involving LJM l and Enron in the year 20OW-was wrong. In fact, Enron gave an in-the-money put option to LJM Swap Sub in 2000 in connection with the unwinding of the Rhythms transaction. Even without this new put option, however, it was questionable to say that the termination simply "occurred under conditions permitted in the original agreement." That statement was true to the extent that nothing in the original agreement prohibited an early termination, but the agreement did not prescribe a termination process or terms. At least some lawyers involved in the disclosure process knew that the unwind of the Rhythms transaction had been carefully negotiated in 2000.

Beyond this factual problem, the non-disclosure rationale seems to have missed the point. Although the precise amount of compensation to which Fastow ultimately was entitled may still have been subject to adjustment, the magnitude of the amount was knowable and should have been disclosed. Furthermore, the instructions to Item 404 provide that "[t]he amount of the interest of any person [subject to disclosure] . . . shall be computed without regard to the amount of the profit or loss involved in the transaction(s)." This instruction, in addition to the basic purpose of the proxy disclosure rules on the interests of Management in transactions with the Company, seems to have

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been lost. Enron had an obligation to disclose the "amount of [Fastow's] interest in the transaction(s)" (emphasis added), not just his income. The lawyers apparently searched for and embraced a technical rationale to avoid that disclosure.

It appears that the in-house Enron lawyers and Vinson & Elkins agreed with these disclosure decisions, although Mintz wrote that "[t]he decision not to disclose in this instance was a close call; arguably, the more conservative approach would have been to disclose." The memorandum he wrote suggests that "other pertinent (and competing) issues" that Fastow had raised led or contributed to the non-disclosure decision, which was only possible because of a quirk of timing. As the memorandum said, "[i]t was, perhaps, fortuitous that the RhythmsNet transaction extended over two proxy filing years and our knowledge of certain facts was delinked by two separate filings; thus, we have relied on two different arguments for avoiding financial disclosure for you as the ]LJM I general partner in 1999 and 2000." We have been told that a number of people expressed varying degrees of skepticism about the rationales for not disclosing the amount of Fastow's compensation, but that none objected strongly.⁸⁴

⁸⁴ Mintz did warn Fastow that it was highly likely that his compensation from the LJM transactions would have to be disclosed in Enron's 2002 proxy statement. It is unclear to what extent this warning contributed to Fastow's decision to sell his interest in LJM2 in the third quarter of 2001. In May 2001, Mintz also retained an outside law firm (Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson from Washington, D.C.) to examine Enron's relationship with the LJM partnerships, Enron's prior disclosures, and the disclosures that might be required even after Fastow sold his interest in LJM2. In June 2001, Fried, Frank provided a summary of the relevant standards, raised some questions concerning prior disclosures, and made some preliminary recommendations for future filings in light of Fastow's decision to sell his interest in LJM2. From what we have seen, Fried, Frank did not take particular issue with the prior disclosure decisions concerning Fastow's compensation.

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The disclosure decisions concerning Fastow's interest in the LJM transactions were also made without the key participants knowing the amount-or even the magnitude-of the interest in question. This is because no one-not members of Senior Management (such as Lay, Skilling or Causey), not the Board, and not Vinson & Elkins-ever pressed for the information, and Fastow did not volunteer it.⁸⁵ The amount of the interest should have weighed in the disclosure decision. Senior Management apparently permitted Fastow to avoid answering the relevant portion of the questionnaires designed to collect information from all executives and directors for the proxy statement disclosures. In 2000, Fastow responded to the questionnaire by attaching an addendum at the suggestion of the lawyers referring the reader to the then-General Counsel of Enron Global Finance for information on Fastow's interests in LJM l and LJM2. In 2001, Fastow attached an addendum approved by in-house and outside counsel saying only that "the nature of my relationship between LJMI and LJM2 (including payments made, or proposed to be made, between such entities and Enron) are [sic] described in the Company's 1999 and 2000 Proxy Disclosure under 'Certain Transactions.'"

Descriptions of the Transactions. Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K also requires a description of the related-party transactions in which the amount of the transaction exceeds $60,000 and an executive has a material interest. All of Enron's transactions

⁸⁵ As we have explained (see Section VIII.A.), the Finance Committee of the Board in October 2000 asked the Compensation Committee to review the compensation received by Fastow from the IJM partnerships. This request reflected a recognition that the compensation information was important for the Board and management to know, but the review apparently was not conducted.

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with the I-TM partnerships discussed in this Report met this threshold and had to be disclosed.

For the most part, the Company's proxy statement descriptions of the related-party transactions with LJM 1 and LJM2 were factually correct, as far as they went. Nevertheless, it is difficult for a reader of the proxy statements to understand the nature of the transactions or their significance. The disclosures omit several important facts. The 2001 proxy, for example, refers to the sale by LJM2 of certain merchant investments to Enron in 2000 for $76 million. This disclosure, however, omits the fact that these transactions were buybacks of assets that Enron had sold to LJM2 the year before in what were described (in the prior year's proxy statement) as arm's-length transactions. And, while Enron contributions to the Raptor entities are mentioned, the document does not disclose that, by the terms of the deal, $82 million was distributed to LJM2 (and therefore to its partners) from Raptors I and II in 2000, even before those entities began derivative transactions with Enron. This last fact is of critical importance to any fair assessment of the transaction.

D. Financial Statement Footnote Disclosures

1. Enron's Disclosures

Enron included a footnote concerning "Related Party Transactions" to the financial statements in its reports on Forms I O-Q and I O-K beginning with the second quarter of 1999, when the transactions with the I-JM partnerships began, through the second quarter of 2001. The disclosures in those footnotes fall into several categories.

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Structure of LJM1 and LJM2. The description of LJM I in the I O-Q for the second quarter of 1999 was similar to the one the Company used in the 2000 proxy statement, described above. The footnote said that "[a] senior officer of Enron is managing member of LJM's general partner." This footnote did not identify Fastow as the "senior officer of Enron," nor did the financial statement disclosure in any subsequent period. The disclosure also did not detail how LJM or Fastow would be compensated in the transactions, although it did say that "LJM agreed that the Enron officer would have no pecuniary interest in ... Enron common shares and would be restricted from voting on matters related to such shares or to any future transactions with Enron." Substantially the same disclosures were made in the third quarter I O-Q and in the 1999 1 O-K.

The Company first described LJM2 in the 1999 1O-K. Enron stated that "LJM2 Co-Investment, L.P. (LJM2) was formed in December 1999 as a private investment company which engages in acquiring or investing in primarily energy-related or communications-related businesses" and that LJM2 "has the same general partner as LJM[1],

In the 10-Q for the second quarter of 2000, Enron described the LJM partnerships as follows: "In the first half of 2000, Enron entered into transactions with limited partnerships (the Related Party), whose general partner's managing member is a senior officer of Enron. The limited partners of the Related Party are unrelated to Enron." From the second quarter of 2000 forward, Enron did not identify LJM l or LJM2 by name in the financial statement disclosures, using the generic term "Related Party" instead. This description was substantially unchanged until the second quarter of 200 1, when the 1 O-Q reflected the sale of Fastow's interest in LJM by stating that "the senior officer,

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who previously was the general partner of these partnerships, sold all of his financial interests as of July 31, 2001, and no longer has any management responsibilities for these entities" and that, "[a]ccordingly, such partnerships are no longer related parties to Enron."

In the 10-Qs for the first and second quarters of 2001, Enron represented that "[a]ll transactions with the Related Party are approved by Enron's senior risk officers as well as reviewed annually by the Board of Directors."

Descriptions of Transactions. Significant portions of the financial statement footnotes on related-party transactions were devoted to descriptions of transactions between Enron and the LJM partnerships.

Beginning with the 10-Q filed for the second quarter of 1999, Enron discussed the Rhythms transaction with LJM l much as it did in the 2000 proxy statement. The disclosures identified the number of shares of stock and other instruments that changed hands; the description in the 1999 10-K removed the numbers of shares. In the I O-Q for the first quarter of 2000, the footnote described the April 2000 termination of the Rhythms transaction with a number of the transaction particulars.

Beginning with the 1999 1 O-K, Enron disclosed in each periodic filing that UM I and/or LJM2 acquired, directly or indirectly, merchant assets and other investments from Enron. These assets were not specifically identified in the disclosures; instead, Enron gave only the approximate dollar value of the assets, either individually or by groupings of similar transactions. We were told that Enron had a general corporate policy, not limited to related-party transactions, against identifying counter-parties in financial

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statement footnotes. The Financial Reporting Group maintained backup materials to support the figures in the financial statement footnotes, and to identify the specific transactions that were covered by the related-party disclosures.

Enron introduced the first Raptor transactions in the I O-Q for the second quarter of 2000, and provided more detailed disclosures for all four Raptor vehicles in the 10-Q for the third quarter and in the 2000 1 O-K. These disclosures had two main parts: a fairly detailed description of the contributions Enron made to the Raptor Vehicles (referred to as the "Entities') at their creation, and a discussion of the derivative transactions between Enron and the Raptor Vehicles through which Enron sought to hedge certain merchant investments and other assets. In the third quarter 1 O-Q and the 1 O-K, Enron disclosed that it had recognized revenues of approximately $60 million and $500 million, respectively, related to the derivative transactions, which offset market value changes of certain merchant investments. (The I O-Qs for the first, second, and third quarters of 2001 included corresponding sets of disclosures.) The I O-Qs for the first and second quarters of 2001 identified instruments that the various parties to the Raptor restructuring transactions received.

Assertions That Transactions Were Arm's-Length. In each of the financial statement footnote disclosures concerning the transactions with LJM, Enron made a representation apparently designed to reassure investors that the transactions were fair to the Company. The language of this disclosure changed a number of times during the period at issue.

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Enron stated in the 10-Q for the second and third quarters of 1999 that "[m]anagement believes that the terms of the transactions were reasonable and no less favorable than the terms of similar arrangements with unrelated third parties." The 10-K for 1999, however, removed the assertion that the transactions were "reasonable" and represented instead only that "the terms of the transactions with related parties are representative of terms that would be negotiated with unrelated third parties" (emphasis added). The reasonableness assertion reappeared in the disclosures for the first quarter of 2000, modifying the 1999 1 O-K version to read: "the terms of the transactions with related parties were reasonable and are representative of terns that would be negotiated with unrelated third parties." Enron used this formulation until the I O-K for 2000, which conditioned the assertion of reasonableness to claim only that "the transactions with the Related Party were reasonable compared to those which could have been negotiated with unrelated third parties" (emphasis added).

Although the paper trail details the iterations through which these management assertions passed during the drafting process, it is unclear who was responsible for the changes, or to what extent these changes were intended to reflect substantive differences in the characterizations of the transactions. We also do not know what steps Management or Andersen took to verify that the assertions were true before they were made. Handwritten notes next to the management assertion on drafts of the 1999 10-K read "need positive evidence" and "needs research."

We learned that some consideration was given to expanding the discussion of the fairness of the related-party transactions to Enron by describing certain advantages that had been identified at the time that Board approval was sought. Handwritten notes on

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drafts of the 10-K for 2000 suggest adding that "transacting with the Related Party provides Enron with additional benefits related to the speed of execution and a counterparty who has a better understand[ing] of complex transactions." In the end, however, the drafters of the disclosures decided against including these or other similar reasons for the related-party transactions.

2. Adequacy of Disclosures

The financial statement footnote disclosures in the periodic reports were comparatively more detailed (except with respect to Fastow's interest in the transactions) than the proxy statement disclosures. Nevertheless, the footnote disclosures failed to achieve a fundamental objective: they did not communicate the essence of the transactions in a sufficiently clear fashion to enable a reader of the financial statements to understand what was going on. Even after months of investigation, and with access to Enron's information, we remain uncertain as to what transactions some of the disclosures refer. The footnotes also glossed over issues concerning the potential risks and returns of the transactions, their business purpose, accounting policies they implicated, and contingencies involved. In short, the volume of details that Enron provided in the financial statement footnotes did not compensate for the obtuseness of the overall disclosure. FAS Statement No. 57 required Enron to provide "[a] description of the transactions, . . . and such other information deemed necessary to an understanding of the

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effects of the transactions on the financial statements" (emphasis added). We think that Enron's related-party transaction disclosures fell short of this goal.⁸⁶

Beyond this general point, our investigation found two particular problems with the related-party disclosures in the financial statement footnotes:

First, Enron lacked the factual basis required by the accounting literature to make the assertions in each SEC filing concerning how the LJM transactions compared to transactions with unrelated third parties. We were told by Enron officers and employees that they believed this management assertion to be required under the accounting literature. In fact, the accounting literature provides: "Transactions involving related parties cannot be presumed to be carried out on an arm's-length basis, as the requisite conditions of competitive, free-market dealings may not exist. Representations about transactions with related parties, if made, shall not imply that the related-party transactions were consummated on terms equivalent to those that prevail in arm's-length transactions unless such representations can be substantiated." Statement of Financial

⁸⁶ In June 2001, outside lawyers from the Fried, Frank firm, who had been asked by Mintz to look over the related-party transaction disclosures around the time of Fastow's sale of his interest in LJM2, reported the following concerning disclosure of UM transactions: "Prior I O-Q disclosure appeared to leave some informational gaps, which were noted by those who commented on the Company's filings. We want to emphasize that we are not in a position to evaluate whether material information was omitted from the prior statements, and have not done so. However, from the standpoint of closing the discussion of these matters once and for all, we would consider supplementing the prior disclosures, where it is possible to do so, especially on such points as the purpose of the specific transactions entered into and the 'bottom-line' financial impact on the Company and the LJM partners."

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Accounting Standards No. 5 7, 13 (emphasis added).⁸⁷ We have not been able to identify any steps taken by Enron Management, Andersen, or Vinson & Elkins to substantiate the assertions that the LJM transactions were "representative of' or "reasonable compared to" similar transactions with unrelated third parties--even though notes on some drafts refer to questions being raised about factual support for these representations.⁸⁸ Indeed, based on the terms of the deals, it seems likely that many of them could only have been entered into with related parties.

Second, the publicly filed financial statement disclosures omitted a number of key details about the transactions. For example, the Company disclosed in the 2000 1 O-K that "Enron paid $123 million to purchase share-settled options from the [Raptor] Entities on 21.7 million shares of Enron common stock." What it did not disclose, however, was that Enron purchased puts on Enron stock. It likely would have been relevant to investors that

⁸⁷ Auditors are under an obligation not to agree to such disclosures without substantiation: "Except for routine transactions, it will generally not be possible to determine whether a particular transaction would have taken place if the parties had not been related, or, assuming it would have taken place, what the terms and manner of settlement would have been. Accordingly, it is difficult to substantiate representations that a transaction was consummated on terms equivalent to those that prevail in arm's length transactions. If such a representation is included in the financial statements and the auditor believes that the representation is unsubstantiated by management, he or she should express a qualified or adverse opinion because of a departure from generally accepted accounting principles, depending on materiality. . . ." AICPA, Codification of Statements on Auditing Standards, § 334.12, Related Parties.

⁸⁸ The Fried, Frank review in June 2001 identified this issue as well, urging the company to identify what members of "management" had reviewed the transactions and what they had done. The firm also suggested to Mintz that the Audit and Compliance Committee, or a special committee of the Board appointed for this purpose, conduct "a review of the fairness of the terms of the transactions to the Company" to bolster the documentation for these representations. It does not appear that such a review was undertaken.

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Enron had entered into a derivative transaction that was, on its face, predicated on the assumption that its stock price would decline substantially. Another example: Enron explained that the LJM partnerships bought merchant assets from Enron, but the footnote disclosures failed to mention that Enron repurchased some of these assets-sometimes within a matter of months, and sometimes before the periodic filing was made. No one interviewed in our inquiry could provide a plausible explanation why the repurchases from the related parties should not have been disclosed in the same manner as the original sales. It is fair to conclude that disclosure of the repurchases so close in time to the original transactions could have called the economic substance of the reported transactions with LJM into question.⁸⁹

E. Conclusions on Disclosure

Based on the foregoing information, the Committee has reached several general conclusions concerning the disclosures of related-party transactions in Enron's proxy statements and in the financial statement footnotes in the Company's periodic filings.

First, while it has been widely reported that the related-party transactions connected to Fastow involved "secret 'partnerships and other SPEs, we believe that is not

⁸⁹ Enron explained in the 1O-Q for the second quarter of 2001 that "the senior officer, who previously was the general partner of these [LJM] partnerships, sold all of his financial interests ... and no longer has any management responsibilities for these entities." It did not disclose, however, that the interest was sold to Kopper, then a former employee of Enron, and therefore gave an impression that the interest would be held more independently from Enron than it was. We were told that Vinson & Elkins recommended disclosure of this fact, but that Enron's Investor Relations Department objected, and the Vinson & Elkins lawyers felt that they could not say it was legally required.

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generally the case. Although Enron could have, and we believe in some respects should have, been more expansive under the governing standards in its descriptions of these entities and Enron's transactions with them, the fact remains that the LJM partnerships, the Raptor entities, and transactions between Enron and those entities all were disclosed to some extent in Enron's public filings.

Second, Enron's disclosures and the information we have about how they were drafted reflect a strong predisposition on the part of at least some in the Company to minimize the disclosures about the related-party transactions. Fastow made clear that he did not want his compensation from the LJM partnerships to be disclosed, and the process reflected a general effort to say as little as possible about these transactions. While we recognize that Enron was not alone in seeking to say as little as the law allowed, particularly on sensitive subjects, we were told by more than one person that the Company spent considerable time and effort working to say as little as possible about the LJM transactions in the disclosure documents. It also appears that Enron Management structured some transactions to avoid disclosure (such as the Chewco and Yosemite transactions described above). That impulse to avoid public exposure, coupled with the significance of the transactions for Enron's income statements and balance sheets, should have raised red flags for Senior Management, as well as for Enron's outside auditors and lawyers. Unfortunately, it apparently did not.

Third, the inadequate disclosures concerning the related-party transactions resulted, at least in part, from the fact that the process leading to those disclosures appears to have been driven by the officers and employees in Enron Global Finance, rather than by Senior Management with ultimate responsibility, in-house or outside

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counsel, or the Audit and Compliance Committee. In fairness, the complexity of the transactions in question made it difficult for those not involved in their actual negotiation or structuring to have been sufficiently steeped in the details to allow for a complete understanding of the essence of what was involved. Nevertheless, the in-house and outside lawyers should have been familiar with the securities law disclosure requirements and should have exercised independent judgment about the appropriateness of the Company's statements. Causey was the Chief Accounting Officer and was specifically charged by the Board with reviewing Enron's transactions with the LJM partnerships. Causey should have been in a unique position to bring relative familiarity with the transactions to bear on the disclosures. The evidence we have seen suggests he did not. Similarly, the Audit and Compliance Committee reviewed the draft disclosures and had been charged by the Board with reviewing the related-party transactions. It appears, however, that none of these people independent of the Enron officers and employees responsible for the transactions provided forceful or effective oversight of the disclosure process.

Fourth, while we have not had the benefit of Andersen's position on a number of these issues, the evidence we have seen suggests Andersen accountants did not function as an effective check on the disclosure approach taken by the Company. Andersen was copied on drafts of the financial statement footnotes and the proxy statements, and we were told that it routinely provided comments on the related-party transaction disclosures in response. We also understand that the Andersen auditors closest to Enron Global Finance were involved in the drafting of at least some of the disclosures. An internal Andersen e-mail from February 2001 released in connection with recent Congressional

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hearings suggests that Andersen may have had concerns about the disclosures of the related-party transactions in the financial statement footnotes. Andersen did not express such concerns to the Board. On the contrary, Andersen's engagement partner told the Audit and Compliance Committee just a week after the internal e-mail that, with respect to related-party transactions, "[r]equired disclosure [had been] reviewed for adequacy," and that Andersen would issue an unqualified audit opinion on the financial statements.

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