Houston – Former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling remained prickly Wednesday – his seventh day on the witness stand in his criminal fraud and conspiracy trial – when repeatedly challenged about whether the energy giant was a risky trading company.
Skilling tried to give detailed denials when asked if he deliberately played down Enron’s allegedly risky trading practices to investors.
But federal prosecutor Sean Berkowitz repeatedly cut him off, seeking “yes” or “no” answers when the ex-CEO insisted the issues weren’t so simple.
“We’re going to be here all day,” Skilling said after Berkowitz refused to let him elaborate on the nature of Enron’s business and how it managed risk.
The government contends that Skilling and his co-defendant, Enron founder Ken Lay, pointedly characterized Enron as a stable company with predictable growth rather than a trading company vulnerable to market volatility because Wall Street would be more bullish on the former.
Kenneth Rice, once a top trader and former CEO of Enron’s failed broadband unit, testified in February that Skilling led an effort in early 1999 to define Enron as a company with consistent growth because analysts who influence stock prices supported stability.
Rice said Skilling told him Enron’s stock would get “whacked” if the market viewed Enron as a trading company.
Skilling maintained Wednesday his oft-repeated stance that Enron was indifferent to wild swings in commodity prices because it was an intermediary that packaged services for commodity buyers and sellers.
“I didn’t think ‘trading company’ reflected, in my view, what Enron was,” Skilling said.
His position appeared to contradict the testimony of Timothy Belden, a former top Enron trader who ran the company’s Western power trading desk. Belden told jurors Enron was primarily a trader and profited heavily from what he called California’s “dysfunctional” market in the aftermath of electricity deregulation. Belden said Enron pocketed almost $1 billion over nine months in late 2000 and the first half of 2001.
