Citizen Works’ Index of the Corporate Crime Wave

July 5, 2002

Number of securities litigation cases filed in 2000[1]: 201

Number in 2001[2]: 483

Number of civil cases the SEC referred to U.S. Attorneys for criminal charges from 1992 to 2001[3]: 609

Number of referrals disposed of by U.S. Attorneys[4]: 525

Defendants prosecuted[5]: 187

Found guilty[6]: 142

Went to jail[7]: 87

Size of the SEC’s national enforcement staff[8]: 950

SEC’s 2001 annual budget[9]: $422.8 million

Number of U.S. corporate law firms that grossed more than $423 million in 2001[10]: 21

Estimated number of corporate lobbyists in Washington, DC[11]: 12,113

Percentage of Americans who believed in 1998 that government regulation of big corporations is “necessary to protect the public”[12]: 53

Percentage of Americans who now believe so[13]: 63

Percentage of Americans who do not trust corporate executives to give them honest information[14]: 57%

Fraction of Americans who believe that what happened at Enron is typical of the behavior of most companies[15]: one-third

Percentage of executives that admit to cheating in golf[16]: 82%

Percentage of executives who say the way a person plays golf is similar to the way he or she conducts business: 59%

Number of publicly-held companies that restated their earnings from1998 through 2000[17]: 464

Average per year: 155

Average per year for 1988 to 1997: 46

Number of CEO departures in May 2002[18]: 80

Number of WorldCom layoffs in June 2002: 17,000

Number of times the pay of the average worker the average CEO is paid[19]: 531

Rise in CEO pay between 1990 and 2000 (before adjusting for inflation): 571%

What the minimum wage would be if it rose at the same rate: $25.20/hr

Percentage of U.S. population earning poverty-level hourly wages[20]: 25%

Proposed maximum individual severance compensation offered to the 4,500 laid-off Enron employees after an additional agreement was reached to take back most of the $100 million in retention bonuses given to Enron executives[21]: $13,500

Amount of retention bonus paid to John Lavorato, a top Enron manager who went to work for UBS anyway[22]: $5 million

Amount Enron paid CEO Ken Lay in 2001[23]: $67.4 million

Number of the 50 large brokerage firms covering companies that went bankrupt in the first four months of 2002 that continued to recommend investors buy or hold shares in the companies even as they were filing for Chapter 11[24]: 47

Amount Global Crossing founder and Chairman Gary Winnick made from selling company shares before the firm filed for bankruptcy protection: $577.9 million

Amount Tyco International’s ex-chairman L. Dennis Kozlowski, and other co-conspirators allegedly avoided paying in city and state sales taxes on six paintings: $1 million

Number of subsidiaries that Tyco has incorporated in offshore tax havens[25]: more than 150

Amount Tyco’s CFO estimates it saved in taxes through incorporating offshore, engaging in transfer pricing and other “tax stratagems”[26]: $600 million

Amount President Bush pledged in March 2002 to donate to international AIDS-fighting efforts: $600 million

Number of Enron subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens[27]: 872

Amount in before-tax profits Enron made from 1996 to 2000[28]: $1.785 billion

Amount Enron would have paid in taxes on these profits if it paid the full federal corporate income tax rate of 35% with no deductions[29]: $625 million

Amount in taxes that Enron paid between 1996 and 2000[30]: $17 million

Amount Enron received from the U.S. government in tax rebates from 1996 through 2000[31]: $398 million

Amount of U.S. government assistance Enron received in loans, grants and other support for global projects via OPIC, the Ex-Im Bank and other government agencies[32]: more than $7 billion

Amount The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), an agency operating with government money, is still considering loaning Enron for a Bolivian gas pipeline expansion[33]: $125 million

Amount of expenses WorldCom estimates it disguised as profits in 2001 and 2002: $3.8 billion

Amount WorldCom loaned to CEO Bernard Ebbers: $366 million

Amount WorldCom gave at a major Republican fundraising gala one week before announcing it falsified its earnings[34]: $100,000

Amount President Bush plans to ask his party to return: $ 0

Year the Telecommunications Act was passed, opening up phone service markets to competition, renewed monopolization and speculation: 1996

Estimated telecom industry debt in 1996: $9 billion

Estimated telecom industry debt in 2000[35]: $306.4 billion

Number of jobs the Los Angeles Times estimates have been lost in the telecom sector from the industry’s implosion[36]: 400,000

Amount WorldCom gave in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to federal candidates between 1989 and 2002: $7.5 million

Amount WorldCom spent on lobbying expenses since 1987: $11 million

Number of corporate reform bills that have passed out of Congress for the president’s signature since Enron filed for bankruptcy last December: 0

1 Investment Dealers’ Digest, June 17, 2002.
2 Ibid.
3 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (http://tracfed.syr.edu) as quoted in “The Odds Against Doing Time,” Fortune, March 18, 2002.
4 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (http://tracfed.syr.edu) as quoted in “The Odds Against Doing Time,” Fortune, March 18, 2002.
5 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (http://tracfed.syr.edu) as quoted in “The Odds Against Doing Time,” Fortune, March 18, 2002.
6 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (http://tracfed.syr.edu) as quoted in “The Odds Against Doing Time,” Fortune, March 18, 2002.
7 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (http://tracfed.syr.edu) as quoted in “The Odds Against Doing Time,” Fortune, March 18, 2002.
8 Michael Schroeder, “SEC Welcomes Prosecuritons,” Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2002. 9 http:www.sec.gov/foiz/docs/budgetact.htm
10 The American Lawyer, July 2002. (21 in 2001 – need to ck 2002).
11 http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/lobby00/summary.asp; Ken Silverstein estimates that there are 40,000 to 80,000 in Washington on $10 Million a Day, page 18.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, reported in WSJ, 6/13/02, page A4.
15 Ibid. 16 Guideline Research & Consulting Inc., “From the Boardroom to the Back Nine” survey of 401 business executives and CEOS with an average household income of $187,000, as quoted in Yahoo! Finance, 6/26/02.
17 Finacial Executives International, as cited in Eric Palmer, “Enron offers lessons to investors, regulators,” Kansas City Star, May 14, 2002.
18 Del Jones and Gary Strauss, “CEOs are going, going, gone” USA Today, June 10, 2002.
19 IPS and United for a Fair Economy, “Executive Excess 2001” (Eigth Annual CEO Compensation Survey), August 2001.
20 Economic Policy Institute, State of Working America 2000-2001
21 Kathryn Kranhold and Mitchell Pacelle, “About Those Big Enron Bonuses,” Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2002.
22 Ibid
23 Includes salary, bonuses and restricted stock. The figure doesn’t include more than $70 millionin loans Lay received from Enron in 2001. Kathryn Kranhold and Mitchell Pacelle, “Enron Paid Top Managers $681 Million, Even as Stock Slid,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2002, page B1.
24 Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., “Crisis of Confidence on Wall Street,” June 11, 2002. http://www.weissratings.com
25 “The Tax Games Tyco Played,” Business Week, July 1, 2000.
26 Ibid.
27 Enron 10-K 2001, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
28 Citizens for Tax Justice: http://www.ctj.org/html/enron.htm
29 Citizens for Tax Justice: http://www.ctj.org/html/enron.htm
30 Citizens for Tax Justice: http://www.ctj.org/html/enron.htm
31 Ibid
32 See “Enron’s Pawns,” the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, www.seen.org
33 Mark Engler, “Exporting Enron,” TomPaine.com
34 Jim VandeHei, “WorldCom Sought Influence Up to Announcement,” Washington Post, June 27, 2002.
35 Ibid.
36 Karen Kaplan and Jon Healey, “Too Much, Too Soon for Telecom,” Los Angeles Times, June 30, 2002.