Ex-official: Enron probably a focus of oil inquiry

(CNN) — Federal regulators investigating possible price manipulation of crude oil are probably looking at what role collapsed energy giant Enron may have played, a former government official said Friday.

On “American Morning,” Michael Greenberger, who once led the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Trading & Markets, said, “almost certainly, what they’re looking at is as a result of Enron pushing for having energy futures contracts being done outside of the United States’ regulatory purview.


“There is a theory that has gained momentum among economists and market observers that the price of crude oil is being driven up not by supply/demand principles in whole but by speculators who are using what are called dark markets, markets that can’t be watched by the public or regulators, to manipulate the price of crude oil and, therefore, gasoline and heating oil in an upward direction,” he said.

He added, “It would be as if you said you could trade stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, but you could also trade stocks somewhere where the Securities [and] Exchange Commission had no idea what was going on, and at the behest of Enron in late 2000 in a lame-duck Congress, this kind of unregulated trading was permitted.”

CNN