2005年NPR美国国家公共电台三月-Business report（在线收听） |
| The former head of Worldcom is back on the witness stand today in federal court in New York city. Bernard Ebbers is charged with fraud for his role in the massive accounting scandal that took place at Worldcom between 2000 and 2002. Yesterday he took the stand to answer the charges against him and NPR's Jim Zerolley was in the courtroom. Jim, tell us a little about the scene inside the courtroom when Bernard Ebbers got up to testify. Well, this was really the dramatic high point of this trial so far. A lot of people turned out to watch it. It was fairly crowded inside the courtroom. Ebbers was questioned by his attorney for about 4 hours altogether. He's sort of a very imposing figure. He has kind of a craggy face, a deep voice, a man of silver hair. Throughout this trial, witnesses have testified that he can be, you know, intimidating to work for , that he has a temper. He actually addressed that yesterday. He said:"I'm demanding and I expect results." But on the witness stand, at least, he seemed very controlled and composed. And how did he address the charges that he played a major role in the Worldcom fraud? Well, he addressed them by pleading ignorance. He said he didn't know anything about financial matters, didn't know anything about financial matters at Worldcom. He said he left accounting up to chief, his chief financial officer/ Scort Salerven. He said Salerven never told him there was any fraud going on. He said "He never told me he made an entry that wasn't right. If he had, we wouldn't be here today." meaning he would never, he would never have put up with that. He, Ebbers, he said that he was so completely in the dark about what was happening at Worldcom that in June, 2002, right before the fraud was about to become public. He actually bought 5-million dollars worth the Worldcom stock which of course within days were just, you know, plummeted in value. Well, will that seem to be an uphill battle for Bernard Ebbers to convince the jurors that he was so unaware of what was taking place at the company? Yeah, one of the challenges I think that Ebbers faces is that, you know, people expect chief executive officers to know what's going on at their companies and so they may have trouble with the notion that the CEO could be so uninvolved, even if there is some truth to it. And, you know, Ebbers on the stand, he doesn't seem like a kind of detached or, you know, ill-informed executive. He went on yesterday at some length about how he built the company started with a small long-distance company and gradually built it into a major telecommunications company. You know, he comes out as a very smart man who knew what he wanted and went after it and, you know, to some extent, that's kind of at odds with the image of a man who could be so easily duped by his subordinates. The prosecution's Recross Examination began late yesterday, what more can Ebbers expect? Well, he can expect the prosecution to really take on this idea that he didn't know anything about what was going on and they started doing that yesterday. David Anders, the prosecutor really hammered him on what his role was at the company. He asked him, for instance, about the issue of analysts' guidance, in other words, you know, what did you tell Wall Street analysts about the company's financial condition and Anders said "You were the CEO, didn't you have final say about guidance?" and Edders said," Well, technically yes, but in practice, you know, it was a consensus." So I think there's probably going to be a lot more of that. Thanks Jim. You're welcome. NPR's Jim Zerolley in New York. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/NPR2005/40503.html |