NY Fund Turns Up Heat on Enron, Joins Exec Asset Freeze Suit

Amalgamated Bank of New York City and others filed the civil suit seeking to freeze the assets of Enron executives and directors on December 5. The suit seeks $25 billion in damages.

Aides to McCall say the collapse of Enron cost the New York pension fund about $58 million. McCall is the sole trustee of the state’s public employee pension fund, which is valued at more than $112 billion.

Last week, the comptroller reported that the fund’s value had fallen by almost $15 billion during the state fiscal year that ended March 31, a drop that preceded Enron’s problems.

A spokesperson for McCall reportedly said that while the state pension fund once owned more than 2 million shares of Enron stock, it had dropped most of it before the company’s collapse.

In a legal notice, McCall said he feared that “Enron Corp. officers and directors against whom allegations of serious security fraud violations have been made would attempt to retain over $1.1 billion in illicit insider trading proceeds, when public employees and pensioners have sustained significant losses in their pension funds.”