After a detailed study of Enron’s overseas activities over the past decade, this report has reached the following four conclusions:
- U.S. Government agencies were the largest backers of Enron’s activities abroad.
- The World Bank Group was an important catalyst of Enron’s global expansion.
- When the World Bank or U.S. taxpayer-backed institutions declined to support an Enron project on financial or political grounds, a raft of other export credit agencies (ECAs) and regional financial institutions eagerly stepped into the breach.
- Enron’s collapse calls into question the policy of energy deregulation that Enron, together with its partners in the United States Government, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, and the private sector have advocated.
Energy deregulation has resulted in the energy needs of the vast majority of citizens — the poorest as well as those in need of power for businesses, hospitals, schools and other public services to function — being routinely sacrificed for private gain. So long as the World Bank, IMF, WTO, U.S. Government and corporations continue to advance this agenda of energy and power deregulation, all signs suggest that future “Enrons” will continue to occur, with devastating public consequences.