Kenneth Lay Quotes

Holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing isn't ideological; it's good law enforcement.

I want to be clear. No company is too big to be prosecuted. We have zero tolerance for corporate fraud, but we also recognize the importance of avoiding collateral consequences whenever possible.

I take responsibility for what happened at Enron, both good and bad. But I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was unaware of.

Executives can no longer hide behind the corporate veil. They need to be accountable for what their companies do, because entities are responsible for socially irresponsible behavior.

If you prosecute a CEO or other senior executive and send him or her to jail for committing a crime, the deterrent effect in my view vastly outweighs even the best compliance program you can put in place.

When then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued me in 2003 over my stewardship as a director of the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE's legal expenses were more than $100 million, which made it perhaps the priciest litigation in the state's history.

I take full responsibility for what happened at Enron. But saying that, I know in my mind that I did nothing criminal.

People are treating the Stewart case as seriously as Enron when it's really over trivia.

No one can have 33,000 employees and not do something wrong or have one of them do something wrong.

Corporate 'citizens' are the leading outlaws. They may regularly violate the law without surrendering their political rights.

… too big to jail

Americans should never believe, even incorrectly, that one's criminal activity will go unpunished simply because it was committed on behalf of a corporation.

Corporations are legal fictions created by the State to shield executives from liability… It’s like if I had a little hand-puppet, and I went to rob a bank, and the hand-puppet held the little gun and told people to hand over all the money, and then the hand-puppet grabbed the money and ran out, and then I got caught and I handed the hand-puppet over the police and then the police tried the hand-puppet, put the hand-puppet in jail, and I get to keep all the money.

You don't want another Enron? Here's your law: If a company, can't explain, in one sentence, what it does... it's illegal.

For CNBC, and for Wall Street, billion-dollar fines for violations of the law are just part of the price of doing business, along with litigation costs and 'compliance.'

Where there is flagrant abuse of corporate entities we must and will seek to tackle it.

Before Enron, I think people were a bit more naive about the way things worked, and I think Enron pulled the curtain back on unsavoury practices that turned out to be a lot more widespread.

We have witnessed the most educated, successful, and monied professionals in the country put their companies - not to mention their own liberty - at risk by engaging in flagrant and foolhardy illegal conduct.

'Power Play' is a morality tale for our post-Enron world and - not incidentally - wildly entertaining. Nothing wrong with that.

If troubled companies want to explain away 2008 as a 'black swan,' then someone should take responsibility for creating the oil slick that seems to have tarred the entire flock!

The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for 'Barron's' magazine and I found a lot to write about.

Companies do not commit crimes; only their agents do. And while a company might get the benefit of some such crimes, prosecuting the company would inevitably punish, directly or indirectly, the many employees and shareholders who were totally innocent.

People should be encouraged by things like awards given for corporate governance practices.

Ken Lay has, does and will continue to accept responsibility for the fall of Enron. He was the man at the controls. But failure is not a crime.