HOUSTON, Dec. 2 — Enron Corp., its energy trading empire in ruins, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday and hit rival and one-time suitor Dynegy Inc. with a $10 billion breach of contract lawsuit for pulling out of a last-ditch merger effort.

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-- Pammy (pamela_sue57@hotmail.com), December 02, 2001

Answers

My guess is, the lawyers working on the breach of contract suit have been paid a hefty cash retainer and expect a large percentage of any eventual settlement. It's a desperation ploy by Enron. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), December 03, 2001.

We went through an era in this country where "the middle man" was eleminated. Enron seems to have tried to revive it, but people aren't used to paying extra just to pay someone to do what was being done just fine under regulation of the industry.

In other words, deregulating the power industry in Califrnia endded up costing a lot of people, industries etc, a lot of money they would not have had to pay if they had stayed regulated. The regulation of the industry was done in the first place to prevent price gouging by monopolistic entities. The rest of the country is rethinking the potential "benifits" of deregulation.

If greed had not overpriced power to California, other states may have believed there were real benifits to deregulation. Competition only lowers prices if there is real competition. When one company, Enron, is playing the part of the middleman, there is no real competition and any price asked for has to be paid or you do without. Generic drugs are an example of prices going down when there is real compitition after the monopoly of their patents runs out.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), December 03, 2001.

They'll simply start another company with the same players. SOS. SNAFU.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), December 03, 2001.

Anita: Hopefully some of those players will be in jail.

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), December 04, 2001.

Peter: Power + money + influence = jail time? I haven't seen this in MY world.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), December 04, 2001.

I'm still betting on the new company.

Enron stock coming back

I'm old enough to remember a day when Chapter 11 brought disgrace both to companies and individuals. There's no disgrace in it anymore. Companies are absolved of debts owed, put up a new sign and continue in business. Individuals get new credit cards and start all over again. Mom, why didn't you tell me that the world would change so?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), December 05, 2001.