Business & Finance

Enron's non-US operations are under scrutiny by the Justice Department task force investigating the bankrupt energy trader, The Wall Street Journal reported. Federal prosecutors are looking into whether Enron may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing foreign officials to win pipeline, power, and water-privatization contracts over nearly a decade. Enron projects in Ghana, Colombia, Nigeria, and the Dominican Republic have been criticized for lack of transparency. Enron denied paying bribes, stating that the company has "a clear anticorruption policy," The Journal said.

A telemarketing campaign that warned Adelphia customers in Los Angeles of cable service interruptions – and offered to sell them a satellite TV service instead – is under investigation by the city attorney's office, The Los Angeles Times reported. Adelphia, which filed for bankruptcy in June, is the city's second-largest cable provider. A spokesman for the company said the telemarketers "are lying to our customers, using scare tactics that are ... probably illegal."

In the largest loan to date for a wind-power project, Tomen Corp., the Japanese trading house, said it had secured $197 million in financing to build six of the environmentally friendly power-generation plants in Spain. Germany's Hypo Vereinsbank AG is putting up the funds.