Timeline of Enron's Collapse

2005

Nov. 1: Juror questionnaires are sent out, marking the beginning of a race for control of the courtroom and public opinion in a trial that defines an era of corporate wrongdoing.

Aug. 2: The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce agreed yesterday to pay $2.4 billion to settle securities fraud allegations brought by former Enron Corp. investors.

July 20: A federal court jury acquits three former Enron Corp. broadband executives of some charges but deadlocked on the remaining charges involving them and two other executives.

April 21: Two former Merrill Lynch & Co. executives convicted in Enron's bogus sale of power barges to the brokerage were sentenced to prison terms far shorter than the punishment sought by the government.

2004

Sept. 21: The first criminal trial involving former Enron Corp. executives opens with prosecutors charging that the defendants conspired with Wall Street bankers to carry out a sham transaction.

Sept. 10: Prosecutors argue in court papers that former Enron Corp. chief executives Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay should stand trial together because they engaged in a "single overarching conspiracy" to enrich themselves by inflating the company's stock price.

Sept. 1: A federal judge in Houston agrees to postpone for five months the criminal trial of several former executives in Enron Corp.'s Internet division.

Aug. 31: The chief operating officer of Enron Corp.'s failed Internet unit pleads guilty to a single criminal conspiracy charge and agrees to cooperate with the government.

Aug. 25: Enron Corp.'s former investor relations chief pleads guilty to one count of aiding and abetting securities fraud and agrees to help prosecutors with their ongoing probe.

Aug. 20: Lawyers for former Enron Corp. executives Jeffrey K. Skilling and Richard A. Causey ask a judge to separate their clients' trials from the case against Kenneth L. Lay, the company's onetime chairman.