Month: October 2003

The Groom Law Group has a good summary of Tittle v. Enron Corp., 2003 WL 22245394 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 30, 2003) (331 pages) which was issued last Wednesday and which was discussed in previous posts here and here: “Executive Summary – Enron ERISA Litigation Ruling.” There is also a chart summarizing the claims which you can access here.

The Groom Law Group has a good summary of Tittle v. Enron Corp., 2003 WL 22245394 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 30, 2003) (331 pages) which was issued last Wednesday and which was discussed in previous posts here and here: “Executive Summary – Enron ERISA Litigation Ruling.” There is also a chart summarizing the claims which you can access here.

This in-depth article at CFO.com–“Whistle-blowers Woes“–discusses how employers and “whistle-blowers” are being impacted in the workplace by these new provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Also, at CFO.com, this very relevant article: “Above Board: Regulators and shareholders want compensation committees to explain why CEOs make so much.”

From Reuters: “Northern Trust Pension Suit an Eye-Opener.” The article quotes Eli Gottesdiener, a lawyer representing Enron employees, as saying that the decision made clear the responsibly that trustees have in protecting pension funds, even if they are told what to do by the companies that employ them. “This is huge in terms of precedent,” he said. “It establishes that even directed trustees have fiduciary obligations and cannot blindly follow orders.”

Additional Quote of Note: “The court’s decision could put more of an onus on trustees, said Scott Henderson, a lawyer who specializes in investment management and matters of pension funds for Boston-based law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP. While directed trustees have no discretion on investments, Henderson said they might have to start assessing the risk of including company stock in pension investments. “Pension funds are already nervous about the role company stock plays in their investment line-up,” he said. “Now they could be responsible for assessing the quality of company stock.”

Links to the Enron case and other articles at this previous post today.

Lyle Roberts at the 10b-5 Daily blog has a post on the Enron case as well.

The Wall Street Journal today reports: “Tax Wins Become Rare for Insurers.” (Subscr. required.) The article discusses how the Senate Finance Committee has been taking aim at corporate-owned life insurance, which allows companies to receive proceeds tax-free from policies on workers, even if they are no longer employed by the company. The article notes that Senator Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.) had tacked on an amendment to pension legislation last month to require companies to pay taxes on proceeds from certain COLI policies and how following heavy industry lobbying, the Senate panel Wednesday took the unusual step of rewriting the Bingaman proposal. According to the article:

The COLI tax proposal originally was set to take effect Sept. 17, but now it won’t kick in until the pension legislation becomes law — and there is no guarantee of that happening this year. That opens the door for more COLI sales in the interim.

Also, this from the HoustonChronicle.com on the Bingaman amendment: “Death benefit crackdown put on hold.”

“House defies Bush on overtime regs: Joins Senate in opposing Labor Dept. rule changes“: CBSMarketWatch.com is reporting that twenty-one Republicans broke ranks, joining most Democrats to give House Republican leaders a rare defeat in a 221-203 vote on a measure which would instruct House negotiators to accept Senate language in an appropriations bill that would prevent the Labor Department from implementing the proposed FLSA overtime regulations.