Top Executives including the founder members and CEOs:

The fall of Enron can much be attributed to the misuse of powers and
privileges, manipulation of information, inconsistency in treatment of internal
and external constituencies and failure in exercising proper oversight on part
of top officials - including the company founder Kenneth Lay, his successor
Jeffery Skilling, CFO Andrew Fastow, and his assistant Michael Kooper. Any
employee who took an issue with Lay or seemed to be a threat to his power
was fired. Skilling eliminated corporate rivals and intimidated subordinates.
Abdication of powers and unethical practices were much prevalent among
these executives. They indulged in off-the-book partnerships, which were
results of waiver of conflict of interest clause in the company's ethical code
by the board. Lavish life and luxuries at company's cost were integral part of
all the top officials at Enron - an example of this can be quoted when the Lay
couple borrowed $75 million for their new home from the firm, and repaid the
same in stock. Greed and self interest of these top officials were the prime
reasons for Enron collapse.
Partners at Arthur Anderson:
In third quarter of 2001, Enron suffered a collapse which resulted in the
largest bankruptcy at that time in the U.S. history. This collapse also
highlighted the wrong doings of Arthur Anderson (one of the Big Five
accounting firms at that time). The audit giant was accused of overlooking
millions of dollars that had not been presented in Enron's books of accounts.
The related party transactions of Enron hindered transparent financial
statements, these were also deemed to be risky on the basis of Arthur
Anderson's risk assessment, however, audit procedures did not reflect the
consideration of this risk. None of the auditors or the engagement managers
discovered related party transactions between JEDI and CHEWCO- Enron
subsidiary (a reason for covering the millions of debts of Enron) , properly
document audit procedures, and provide supervision to junior staff auditors
about this. David Duncan, who was primarily responsible for the Enron
audits, recklessly issued unqualified opinions on the 1998-2000 Enron audits,
thus violating Section 10(b), Rule 10b-5 of the Exchange Act. Not only this,
he initiated document destruction the moment SEC's Enron probe became
public. Hence, failure to prepare Enron's financial statements in accordance
to the GAAS, issuing materially misstated audit reports and failure to
exercise due professionalism contributed much to Enron debacle.
Government Agencies (Lobbying):

In exchange of millions of dollars of political donations, the government

granted preferential treatment to Enron on number of occasions. The
government officials allowed Enron to nominate friendly candidates for the
SEC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Not only this, various
federal officials intervened with foreign governments to promote numerous
projects of Enron. The company received financial backing in form of millions
of dollars as subsidies from the government organizations such as EXIM
bank, OPIC - Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Not only this, in the
states, the Centers analysis counted the passage of any deregulation plan
that allowed Enron to either enter a market or expand its presence in a
market as a favor, even if the final deregulation plan was not the one Enron
lobbied for. Over $6 million of political donation granted Enron lobbying in
half of the states in the U.S., which, if stopped from the beginning, could
have prevented to much extent the damages caused to and by the energy
giant.