Twenty Years After Enron, Investors Still Vulnerable to Fraud

The collapse of Enron, which filed for bankruptcy protection 20 years ago today, shook the capital markets and led directly to the demise of Arthur Andersen, the auditing firm that approved Enron’s annual statements and accounting acrobatics. The scandals led to new rules and laws for corporations and auditors that were meant to prevent future frauds of such massive scale.

Two decades later, no similar blowups have occurred in U.S. markets. But it’s not clear that investors are any safer today than they were before Enron Corp. failed.

Former Enron Chief Executive Officer Ken Lay arrives at a courthouse in Houston for his fraud and conspiracy trial in 2006.

Photographer: F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg

At the time of the Enron fiasco, Andersen had already been ...