WASHINGTON, July 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. public opinion showed rising mistrust of corporations this week as a U.S. congressional report into the Enron scandal has found that company board members may have been aware of the “creative” accounting practices and other transgressions that led to the demise of the energy giant, according to U.S. media reports.

Time Magazine reported on its website Sunday, July 7, 2002, that the 60-page Congress document was scornful of claims of ignorance by Enron board members like former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lay.

The report determined that the board "knowingly allowed Enron to engage in high-risk accounting," the magazine reported.

The document concludes that Enron directors were aware of everything, from extensive off-the-books deals to conflicts of interest and excessive compensation for senior executives, but did little or nothing about those practices.

Chairman Carl Levin of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which issued the study, reportedly criticizes directors for "failing to acknowledge" their share of the blame for Enron's collapse.

Enron, once the seventh largest U.S. company, imploded late last year following a series of smoke-and-mirrors accounting tricks in which the company vastly over reported its profits, hid its debt and then tried to destroy evidence as investigators moved in, Agence France-Presse (AFP) stated.

Other financial giants have also been found guilty of corporate fraud, including Xerox, American icon Martha Stewart and U.S. telecommunications giant WorldCom.

Earlier this month, tax evasion charges were filed against Dennis Kozlowski, the former chairman and chief executive of embattled conglomerate Tyco International.

Martha Stewart, who sits on the board of the bellwether New York Stock Exchange, has been fighting allegations of insider trading since she unloaded shares of ImClone Systems right before the company was denied permission to market an anti-cancer drug.

But perhaps the biggest blow to the U.S. corporate world's reputation came early this week, when it was disclosed that telecom giant WorldCom had concealed $3.8 billion in current expenses to make its balance sheet show a profit when in fact the company was making a loss.

The corporate scandals have resulted in major erosion of public confidence in U.S. companies, which are no longer seen by many Americans as trustworthy.

An opinion poll conducted by Bloomberg News earlier this month found that 69% of Americans believed companies lied in their financial documents. Just 51% shared that opinion in March.