Judge Approves $6.6B In Enron Settlements

May 24, 2006
By Alistair Barr

A federal judge has given final approval for three banks to pay $6.6 billion to settle civil claims that they helped Enron Corp. manipulate earnings, according to published reports Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon approved the deals with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (BCM) , J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C) , William Lerach, attorney for the plaintiff in the cases said in an interview.

The court order brings total settlements from this Enron litigation to roughly $7.3 billion so far, Lerach added. The class-action suit covers about 50,000 investors who owned Enron securities between September 1997 and December 2001. In total, the amount of money available to Enron investors exceeds the $6.1 billion that Wall Street forked over to WorldCom investors in similar litigation.

The attorney also said he's preparing new civil lawsuits against Enron insiders, auditor Arthur Andersen and seven other large banks including Merrill Lynch (MER) , Barclays Plc, Credit Suisse (CSR) and Royal Bank of Canada (RY)...

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