A federal jury in Houston convicted the two former top executives at Enron -- Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling -- of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in the collapse of the former energy-trading giant. Lay and Skilling now face lengthy prison sentences. See story from National Public Radio

A short summary of the rise and fall of Enron. See story from BBC

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to require companies to provide more details about how they pay top honchos, including pumped-up pensions and weekend family picnics on Nantucket via the company jet. See story from Christian Science Monitor

The Enron trial comes at a time when business and industry groups are mounting a campaign to roll back some of the reforms that the Enron scandal inaugurated. Thus, the lessons of the nation's second-biggest bankruptcy remain in flux and may be determined, in part, by the outcome of the legal drama set to begin. See story from Christian Science Monitor

With help from the U.S. Justice Department and state prosecutors, corporations are getting away with serious crimes by using their executives as cannon fodder, according to a new report, which questions whether this new legal strategy is hindering or enabling corporate malfeasance. See story from One World Net

In the latest wave of U.S. corporate scandals, the days of reckoning are finally here. Legal observers say years of hard, and often delicate, work by prosecutors - initially accused by some of dragging their feet - are now beginning to pay off in high-profile sentencings. See story from Associated Press

Bernie Ebbers, 63, the former WorldCom CEO convicted of masterminding the $11 billion accounting scandal at the former telecom giant, got the stiffest sentence ever handed down to a white-collar criminal. The 21-plus years minimum time Ebbers will have to spend in prison - reflecting time off for good behavior - basically amounts to a life sentence. The sentence comes on the heels of the 15-year sentence handed down last month to 80-year-old John Rigas , the former CEO of Adelphia Communications. Many in believe that the sentences reflect a view that the only way to achieve any means of deterrence is to put corporate executives behind bars. See story from Fox News

A Manhattan jury convicted former Tyco International Ltd. chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski and former chief financial officer Mark H. Swartz on multiple counts of looting the company, handing prosecutors a big win in their crackdown on corporate crime and concluding a legal drama that stretched across two trials and three years. See story from Washington Post

Financial services giant Citigroup Inc., today agreed to pay $2 billion to settle a class action lawsuit brought by investors accusing it of aiding in the massive fraud allegedly committed by Enron Corp., the bankrupt energy company. In July, 2003, Citigroup settled a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint for $120 million alleging that it helped Enron mislead investors by characterizing loan proceeds as cash from operating activities. That settlement also covered SEC charges that Citigroup aided another company, Dynegy Inc., in manipulating financial statements. See story from Washington Post

Some business leaders are pressing for a partial rollback of regulations enforcing the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, saying its corporate financial-reporting requirements are too onerous. Some ethics experts it be left alone. The battle picks up some momentum this week, when business and government officials meet in Washington, D.C. to discuss the law. See story from Christian Science Monitor

Investigations into American International Group accounting scandal have exposed a shady corner of the insurance world in which secret agreements skew reinsurance transactions, hiding their real intent from regulators, investors and customers. AIG said that it has been, in effect, buying reinsurance from itself for more than a decade through control of at least one offshore firm. The company said it unearthed evidence that it may control Barbados-based reinsurer Union Excess. Previously, AIG accounted for reinsurance it bought from Union Excess as if latter were independent. Changing financial statements to reflect AIG control may knock $1.1 billion off AIG shareholders' equity, the insurer said. See story from CBS Market Watch

They lied, cheated, and stole. Then giggled about it. They considered their conspirators brilliant and their deception intellectually stimulating. They were Enron executives, and these are a few of the details they have provided to jurors in the first criminal trial since the energy giant collapsed in a whirlwind of financial trouble three years ago. See story from Christian Science Monitor

Former Enron Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lay surrendered to federal authorities to face criminal charges related to his leadership of the onetime-giant energy company, which fell from Wall Street's loftiest heights into bankruptcy and disgrace. See story from Newsmax

Adelphia Communications Corp.founder John Rigas and his son, Timothy, were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in the multibillion-dollar collapse of the cable television company. See story from Associated Press

Despite the intense public scrutiny of recent celebrity insider-trading cases, like those of Mr. Waksal and Martha Stewart, Wall Street insiders - who in theory should know better than anyone - still violate securities laws by misusing nonpublic information. See story from New York Times

Across corporate America, executives have been selling company stock as if it were 1999. Even amid this resurgence of insider selling, however, a few dozen executives - including those at Zimmer - stood out for having unloaded supersized portions of their personal stakes in their company's future. At Wendy's International, Qualcomm, Occidental Petroleum, Boston Scientific and Comverse Technology, one or more executives sold at least half their holdings, according to a SundayBusiness analysis of hundreds of big companies. See story from New York Times

More progress has been made improving the governance of U.S. corporations during the past couple of years than in the several decades preceding them. New reporting requirements that stock exchanges have ordered in response to high-profile scandals, together with tougher auditing standards under the Sarbanes- Oxley Act, have pushed boards and managers to become far more diligent in reporting accurate financial information. Boards have also grown acutely aware of their responsibility to shareholders and of the consequences of failing to live up to it, so many have become more independent from management . See story from Forbes

The corporate fraud prosecution involving Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz collapsed in a mistrial after a Manhattan judge declared he had "no choice" but to throw out the case because outside pressure on the jury had made it impossible for the panel to reach a fair verdict. The mistrial came on a day when jurors had arrived early at the courthouse, anticipating that they would reach a verdict. Sentiment was running toward conviction on at least one count of grand larceny against two former Tyco International Ltd. executives, according to jurors. See story from Washington Post