Skilling

Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling has spent the past two days on the witness stand answering questions from his own attorney. Here's a blow-by-blow from the Houston Chronicle's trial blog, and here are some thoughts from the WSJ Law blog. I think the point about Skilling having great power of recall for some things but not for others is a good one. Obviously, if he doesn't remember something then he has to say so, but an average juror may wonder how someone cannot remember trying and (especially) failing to sell 200,000 shares of stock within days of September 11, 2001.

I think Skilling runs the risk of looking too smart and clever for his own good, someone who was so busy thinking great thoughts that he could not be expected to notice the chicanery that was occurring right before his eyes. Indeed, Skilling's tortured explanation for why Fastow running the LJM partnerships while also working as Enron's CEO was not a conflict of interest shows why he is on trial. How hard is it to see that there is a problem with your CFO running a private investment partnership out of your corporate offices and arranging deals between that partnership and your company? Do you need a Harvard MBA (which Skilling has) to understand that when the same person is negotiating both sides of a deal one side is not getting the best deal? Deliberate indifference, anyone??

As I have said previously, regardless of what other witnesses have said, if the jury believes Skilling and Lay (who will testify soon), they walk. And this jury has seen enough by now to know that the real test of Skilling's credibility will come when the government conducts its cross-examination next week. Let's see what happens then.