There was Breaking News in the investment fraud world today, as Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of criminal charges.

Specifically, Lay was found guilty on six counts of fraud and conspiracy and four counts of bank fraud in a separate trial; Skilling, guilty on eighteen counts of fraud and conspiracy, one count of insider trading, but not guilty on nine other counts of insider trading.

However, far from putting an end to the Enron saga, this is just the end of one chapter. These two men, now convicted of criminal offenses, will only be sentenced in September. At question is whether they will go to prison then, or be eligible for bail pending their inevitable appeals. The eventual jail time could be long – each count of conspiracy and fraud carries a five to ten year sentence, and insider trading, ten years. These men, once at the pinnacle of corporate America, might well die behind bars.

This is only one piece of the Enron puzzle: The implications of this trial for those injured by the actions of Lay, Skilling, and their associates are more symbolic than tangible. Satisfaction at justice being done to those responsible for your loss is nice but it is only that – emotional satisfaction. The victims of Enron are due reparation as well, and the guilty verdicts in the criminal trial serve to underline this liability.

In August 2000, Enron shares hit their all-time high of $90 and the company was ranked the sixth largest energy company in the world and seventh largest company in the United States. Little more than a year later, in the fall of 2001, the company reported a loss, investigations began and scandals began to be revealed. The shares fell to less than a dollar and are now worthless.

This matters not only to billionaire corporate executives, lawyers and the government; it matters to millions of ordinary consumers in the United States and many other countries affected by the fraud. Employees of Enron – and there were thousands – lost not only their jobs, their source of income, but a large chunk of their retirement savings due to a heavy investment in Enron stock in the company's 401K retirement fund overnight. Literally. Anyone already retired from the company and receiving a pension was affected as well.

Those who owned shares whether directly or via funds which included Enron stock saw their net worth go down, and shares of other energy companies and large corporations became volatile. The uncertainty of how deep the fraud ran, whether isolated to Enron or tied to the entire sector, also caused stock losses. It's fair to say that the reverberations were felt throughout the economy, which was already weakened by the September 11 attacks on the United States.

So much equity was lost for pensioners and employees because their retirement savings were not properly diversified. Enron stock comprised as much as sixty per cent of some portfolios, much larger than the ten per cent maximum recommended. There were conditions surrounding employer matching contributions and withdrawals that did not work in employees' favor, where the investments of executives were not subject to these regulations.

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