The former vice-chairman of Enron, Mr Cliff Baxter, has been found dead. Texas police say he was found in his car with a single gunshot sound to his head. A suicide note and a gun were also dicovered.
Enron, once one of the largest energy companies in the world, collapsed last year leaving thousands of staff with company pensions and shareholders out of pocket.
A number of investigations have been launched into the collapse of the company amid allegations of corruption and political involvement in a cover-up of the circumstances under which the company collapsed.
Mr Baxter had made £25 million by selling his share options befire the Enron collapse but had been retained as a consultant.
He was one of 29 executives being sued by shareholders angry that comapny bosses had cashed in over a billion dollars worth of share options before Enron became the biggest bankruptcy in US corporate history in November.
Mr Baxter had complained about the accounting practices being used to conceal the company's debts before he quit and was mentioned in a devastating memo sent to then chairman Kenneth Lay by Sherron Watkins, a senior executive last summer.
In the memo she wrote: "Cliff Baxter complained mightily to [former chief executive Jeff] Skilling and all who would listen about the inappropriateness of our transactions with LJM."
LJM was one of up to 900 offshore partnerships used in a legally questionable system to hide the debt whose emergence caused Enron's downfall.
The explosive letter warned: "We will implode in a wave of accounting scandals" - a prediction which has come true, with auditors Arthur Andersen also implicated in the corporate collapse.
The firm shredded documents and deleted computer files after Enron's bankruptcy, and yesterday the accountant in charge of the audit refused to give evidence to a Congressional committee investigating the collapse on the grounds that he would incriminate himself.
The scandal has also spread to the White House, because of the close links the Texas-based firm had with many figures in the administration, including President George Bush.
Hundreds of politicians received donations from Enron and have tried to distance themselves from the firm, saying it received no improper benefits from them as it went bust.
The firm had substantial British interests and has laid off thousands of workers in America as well as leaving its millions of shareholders with nothing to show for their investments.
Workers also lost their pensions in the collapse, as their retirement funds were largely invested in the company's stock, prompting anger that executives had made fortunes before the collapse.