The state’s trash authority has filed a lawsuit against Enron Corp.’s officers, accountants and three nationally known bond rating agencies in an effort to recoup $220 million lost in a failed deal with the former energy giant.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court on behalf of the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority.
The suit, which names Standard & Poors Corp., Moody’s Corp. and Fitch Inc., marks the first time the agencies have been sued in connection with the Enron financial collapse, Blumenthal said.
The 153-page complaint also names Enron’s individual officers and directors, including Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow; Enron’s banks and law firms. Enron’s accounting firm, Arthur Anderson and its partners, are also named in the suit.
“Our lawsuit sets forth a staggering mosaic of misconduct,” Blumenthal said. “Each of the defendants were either complicit or negligently incompetent, enabling Enron’s scheme to defraud the CRRA (Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority).”
Under the failed 1999 deal, the CRRA paid Enron $220 million in exchange for an agreement that Enron would pay the authority $26.4 million a year for power from a Hartford trash-to-energy plant, which Enron would then sell on the open market.
–Associated Press