Jury rules against Florida on Enron pension fund claims News
Jury rules against Florida on Enron pension fund claims

[JURIST] A jury on Monday found no wrongdoing by investment firm Alliance Capital [corporate website] when it invested Florida state employee pension funds in plunging Enron stock, ultimately losing $280 million. The jury found against the Florida State Board of Administration [official website] in its breach-of-contract claims [JURIST report] against Alliance that accused the company of continuing to buy up Enron stock even as the company began to falter in 2001. Alliance argued there was no way that it could have known about Enron's accounting fraud used to hide major financial problems at the oil giant. The jury found for Alliance on its $1.1 million counterclaim against the state for the remainder of its contract. The state had also alleged conflict of interest, arguing that Alliance board member Frank Savage also served on Enron's board. Although Florida lost the most of any state on the Enron scandal, the losses amount to less than one percent of the state's $100 billion employee pension fund. AP has more.