Enron timeline -- 1985 merger to Skilling's appeals

The collapse is dated 2001. The accounting choices and the legal aftermath occupy the decade around it.

These entries are the ones the Powers Report, the criminal docket, and the legislative history cite most often.

Timeline

1. 1985Enron formed

   Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth merge. The company later named Enron becomes a pipeline-and-trading enterprise based in Houston.

2. 1990sTrading and mark-to-market

   Enron expands trading and uses mark-to-market accounting on long-term contracts, reporting earnings that later restatements and prosecutors attacked as unsupported.

3. 1999LJM partnerships

   CFO Andrew Fastow organizes LJM vehicles that transact with Enron. The Powers Report later treats the conflicts as central to the hidden-loss story.

4. 2001Resignation, warning, bankruptcy

   Skilling resigns in August. Watkins writes to Lay. Enron takes a large October charge. Chapter 11 follows on 2 December.

5. 2002Powers Report and SOX

   The board special committee issues the Powers Report in February. Andersen is convicted of obstruction in June. Sarbanes-Oxley is signed on 30 July.

6. 2004Fastow plea

   Andrew Fastow pleads guilty to conspiracy and agrees to cooperate. His testimony becomes a pillar of the later Houston trial.

7. 2005Andersen reversed

   The Supreme Court reverses Andersen's conviction for faulty instructions. The firm's audit practice is already gone.

8. 2006Lay and Skilling verdicts

   A Houston jury convicts both men. Lay dies on 5 July; his conviction is vacated. Skilling is sentenced to 24 years, later reduced.

9. 2010Skilling v. United States

   The Supreme Court narrows honest-services fraud. Skilling's case is remanded; other fraud convictions remain.

10. 2013Sentence reduced

    After further proceedings, Skilling's prison term is reduced (to 14 years in a 2013 agreement). He is later released to supervised conditions.

After the Houston verdicts, Enron's live legal life was appeals and estate work; the accounting-fraud story was already a teaching case.

Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.

Related cases

💹 Frauds Bernie Madoff 2008 · Convicted Bernard L. Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to the largest Ponzi scheme then recorded in U.S. court, after his New York investment business collapsed in December 2008. Open → 💹 Frauds Theranos 2015 · Convicted Theranos promised laboratory results from a finger-stick. After 2015 reporting and a 2022 federal verdict, Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud against investors. Open → 💹 Frauds Charles Ponzi 1920 · Convicted Charles Ponzi's 1920 Boston collapse, built on promised profits from postal reply coupons, gave the English language its name for paying earlier investors with later ones. Open →