Gary Hart: “I rise in support of the CARTA bill as it stands. The Committee on Financial Services did an extensive amount of…”

“I rise in support of the CARTA bill as it stands. The Committee on Financial Services did an extensive amount of research on these issues, especially in light of the concerns raised by the Enron debacle. Several disturbing aspects about corporate disclosures in financial statements were made very clear during this process, but one of the most alarming was the unequal treatment of employees and what they were and were not allowed to do with company stock that they received in their retirement plans. I have here what will happen as a result of the CARTA bill. Pre-Enron there was little disclosure. Financial information was all in legal jargon. People could not really understand it. There was insider auditing, as we saw in the Enron case, deals made among the auditors with the company which were really not fair or right or a true representation of the actual financial situation of the company. Also, insider trading during blackouts, those executives were allowed to sell their stock; those regular people, the employees, unfortunately were not, and ended up losing a lot of money because of the deceit involved with the financial statements. Post-Enron, under the CARTA bill we have full disclosure. We also have something very important, and that is the financial information that all investors get in plain English. No more games. Under CARTA, plain English so that everybody understands exactly what is going on with the company.”