Enron Turns Over Nearly $7 Million in Delinquent Property Taxes
Largest Ever Bankruptcy Payoff for Harris County, City of Houston and HISD

Houston – Aug. 12, 2005 - Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt announced today that the county’s delinquent tax attorneys have collected $6.9 million in delinquent property taxes from several Enron subsidiaries in the largest bankruptcy collection in the county’s history.

“This record collection returns millions of dollars to where they rightly belong – to the residents of Harris County, Houston and HISD,” said Bettencourt. “Attorneys with Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson stuck with this case for years to ensure that their clients and city and county residents got their money for schools and other public services. It’s very rare in a bankruptcy case like this to collect such a big payment, much less all of the base tax owed.”

Harris County and the City of Houston will collect $3.5 million of the $6.9 million, with most of the remainder going to the Houston Independent School District. The payments represent delinquent 2001 property and business personal property taxes on Enron’s downtown office building at 1400 Smith and its furnishings and equipment. Attorneys with Linebarger Goggan collected the payment in 48 checks on Aug. 5. The $6.9 million is in addition to about $1.1 million the Tax Office, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and the Harris County Appraisal District collected from Enron Broadband Services through the same bankruptcy court in December 2002. Enron’s payment more than doubles the county’s previous record for a bankruptcy payment, the $3.2 million collected from WorldCom in October 2004.

“What District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and Chief Appraiser Jim Robinson proved in 2002 was the magnitude of the fraud that Enron Broadband tried to perpetrate on the public,” said Bettencourt. “The good news today is that this most recent payment bodes well for any companies emerging from Enron’s bankruptcy proceedings, because the public property tax bill will have effectively been paid in full.”

Officials with Linebarger Goggan said the $6.9 million represents the largest bankruptcy collection in the Houston office’s history and that it effectively ends claims against the Enron companies, with the exception of some smaller collection activity.

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