Charities that get some $11 billion a year from Corporate America have come into the sights of post-Enron reformers. It's high time. For years, companies have obscured conflicts of interests behind the apple-pie image of charity. It took Enron Corp.'s devotion to the causes of several of its directors to focus investors' minds on how such gifts can potentially compromise board independence. One glaring example is John Mendelsohn, president of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Enron, its then-chairman Kenneth Lay, and their foundations collectively gave the center $332,150, after Mendelsohn became an Enron director. Mendelsohn, who wasn't available to com-ment, is a member of Enron's key audit committee.
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