Manuel Velasquez: What went wrong at Enron? In ethics, explanations tend to fall into three categories: personal, organizational, and systemic. Personal explanations look for the causes of evil in the character of the individuals who were involved. Did this happen, for example, because the people involved were vicious? read more
At the same time, Arthur Andersen, the company that audited Enron's books, at best neglected to recognize the company's problems. At worst, investigators now say, the auditor was complicit in perpetrating one of the biggest frauds in corporate history. read more
As often happens with buccaneering entrepreneurs, it got a case of hubris. It figured if it could trade energy, it could trade anything, anywhere, in the new virtual marketplace. read more