BRIEFCASE ENRON PAY DEALS ARE 'EYE-POPPING'.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

A congressional panel has uncovered ``eye-popping'' pay deals for Enron executives and an elaborate scheme to manipulate the failed company's taxes and accounting, the Senate Finance Committee chairman said Wednesday.

The House-Senate Joint Committee on Taxation has been combing through Enron's tax records for about a year, trying to determine whether the energy-trading company skirted tax laws. The panel is presenting its findings in a report today at a Finance Committee hearing.

Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said staffers told him the report is ``an absolute barn-burner.''

Details of the report were not available Wednesday.

Top Enron executives and directors received millions of dollars worth of company stock, which they sold in 2000 and 2001.

Labor unions seek change at firms

WASHINGTON - Labor unions, with $400 billion in pension fund assets, are stepping up their demands for investor-friendly changes at public companies, starting with annual shareholder meetings in March.

Unions have filed a record 380 shareholders resolutions focusing on board of directors reforms, executive compensation, reincorporation, auditor independence and workers' rights. That is double the total in 2002.

Overall, shareholder groups filed 862 proposals with companies through early February, compared with 802 during all of 2002, according to a report by the Investor Responsibility Research Center and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Last year's corporate scandals involving such companies as Enron and WorldCom have fueled investors' activism.

Unions say their campaign will get under way by March 6 at the annual meeting for Tyco International Inc. in Bermuda.

Watchdog asks Verizon inquiry

NEW YORK - A telecommunications watchdog group Wednesday asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the accounting of Verizon Communications Inc., saying the nation's largest phone company has not resolved questions about how it determines the costs of its infrastructure.

Verizon blasted the complaint and said it was dredging up long-dead issues.

The organization behind the complaint, TeleTruth, cited Federal Communications Commission staff audits in the 1990s that determined phone companies couldn't account for $5 billion in assets they claimed to have in their complex networks. The phone companies disputed the probe's methods.

Since then, Verizon has not shown that it has dealt with the problems raised by those audits, said Daniel Berninger, a board member of TeleTruth, whose chairman, Bruce Kushnick, has often accused the Bells of accounting missteps.

Exporters needed for trade mission

The Los Angeles County Community Development Commission is seeking out small-business owners for its South African trade mission.

The 12-day trip is May 15 to 26 and co-sponsored by the South African consulate general and the California Trade, Technology and Commerce Association.

The mission links local exporters with African firms interested in airport equipment, automotive components, waste and air pollution management, telecommunications and many other areas.

Interested parties should contact the CDC at [phone] before Tuesday.