A criminal investigation by the US Justice Department has begun into the collapse of oil company Enron .
The decision to add a criminal inquiry to the other investigations could be potentially embarrassing for President Bush, who was advised by the company’s executives on his administration’s energy policy. The White House has refused to name these executives.
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Mr Bush’s presidential campaign received funding from the company.
The announcement of the Justice Department’s inquiry was welcomed by Mr Robert Bennett, attorney for Enron: "When this investigation is finished, a lot of the things that people are reading and hearing will be proven to be not true".
Once the world's largest energy trader, Enron slid in a matter of weeks from being a Wall Street bellwether to making the largest bankruptcy filing in US history last December. Its demise, after the withdrawal of a rescue takeover bid by rival Dynegy, left thousands out of work and devastated investors.
The Texas-based company is also being investigated by five congressional committees, the market-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission and the Labor Department.
At the heart of Enron's problems were complex financial partnerships - known as special-purpose entities - set up by Enron executives and apparently used to keep debt off the company's books.
After deals involving the partnerships went sour, Enron in October had to take a $1 billion charge against earnings and cut shareholder equity by $1.2 billion.
Those moves drew market attention to the partnerships, triggering a crisis in investor confidence and credit-rating downgrades that led to bankruptcy court.