If you believe in the rule of law you can’t help but be pleased with the government’s scorecard in the corporate earnings scandals:

Adelphia:
John Rigas: guilty, 15 years
Timothy Rigas: guilty, 20 years

Tyco:
former CEO Dennis Kozlowski: guilty; sentencing in August
former CFO Mark Swartz: guilty; sentencing in August

Worldcom:
former CEO Bernard Ebbers: guilty; sentencing in July

Rite Aid:
former CEO Martin L. Grass: guilty, 8 years
former Chief Counsel Franklin Brown: guilty, 10 years

Dynegy: accountant Jamie Olis: guilty, 24 years

HealthSouth: former CEO Richard Scrushy: jury is deliberating

Enron:
former Chairman Ken Lay
former CEO Jeffrey Skilling
former Chief Accounting Officer Richard Causey
… trial starts January 2006

We only wish life sentences were being handed down (although the elder Rigas’s 15 years amounts to that). Their failure to play by the rules stole from the savings of hundreds of thousands of people as surely as if they looted their victim’s 401k and brokerage accounts.

On a more macro level, the added costs imposed on public companies over the last few years are their fault as well. And there has been an intangible loss of credibility in American-style capitalism around the world.

Good riddance to these scoundrels — may we never see their like again.

Technorati Tags: big business

This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2005 at 6:59 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under How Not To Succeed In Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.