Analysis By Bill Wilson BBC News Online business reporter

Enron reached for the top but ended up crashing in disgrace

Once Enron boasted of wanting to become more than just another energy supplier, aspiring to be "The World's Leading Company" according to a banner in the lobby of its Houston headquarters.

And indeed its name is known worldwide - synonymous with a corporate culture of murky finances, executive greed, and a seeming contempt for shareholders, staff, and regulators.

So, when Parmalat's fraudulent transactions and shaky empire were recently exposed in Italy, the scandal was immediately dubbed "Europe's Enron".

Enron was the seventh-biggest US company in 2001, and its bankruptcy in December of that year was the largest such filing in American history at the time.

Two years on, US investigators now have a major breakthrough with the guilty plea to two fraud charges by ex-chief finance officer Andrew Fastow.

His confession follows a trail started back in 2002 by former corporate-development executive Sherron Watkins, a "whistleblower" who told all she new about the Enron scandal.

Bottom line, if the truth is told, there still will be no case against Jeff Skilling Attorney Bruce Hiler

Fastow has agreed to a 10-year prison sentence that will make him the highest-ranking executive to do time, and agreed to forfeit $23.8m, as well as help the government build a case against top executives.

"I and other members of Enron senior management fraudulently manipulated Enron's publicly reported financial results, " Fastow said in a written statement filed with his plea-bargain agreement.

"I also engaged in schemes to enrich myself and others at the expense of Enron's shareholders and in violation of my duty of honest services to those shareholders," the statement continued.

He added that the purpose was to mislead investors and inflate the company's stock price and credit rating.

'Follow the facts'

Fastow's deal means prosecutors will be trying to build a case against those at the top of corporate ladder, in particular founder and former chairman Ken Lay, and ex-chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.

Both Mr Lay and Mr Skilling have always maintained their innocence of any wrongdoing, and neither has been charged with a crime.

Ken Lay: Not about to lie down

But following the Fastow deal, Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department unit investigating the company said: "This is very significant to the Enron Task Force because whatever Andrew Fastow knows about what went on the 50th (top executive) floor, the task force will now know as well."

The Bush Administration has also indicated its willingness to follow the trail, in an attempt to reassure investors and the American public that corporate deregulation has not meant corporate corruption.

"We will systematically follow the facts, wherever they lead, no matter how long that takes," said deputy Attorney General James Comey.

Employee gifts

It is a long way down the road since Mr Lay founded Enron in the mid-1980s with the merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth pipeline companies.

Unlike old-fashioned energy producers like Shell or Exxon, Enron looked for new ways of achieving its stated ambition of world domination.

Under the leadership of Mr Skilling it moved into dealing in energy futures, and committing itself to providing guaranteed supplies of gas at a fixed price on long-running contracts.

Enron was feted in the US financial media for its "innovations", and Fastow named chief financial officer of the year in the US.

Enron facts Founded by Ken Lay in 1985 Strong advocates of deregulation By 2000 most revenues came from energy trading Failed move into telecommunications Huge hole in accounts found in 2001

Meanwhile company millions were lavished on employee gifts, art, swanky motorbikes and cars, new headquarters and offices, corporate bashes, concierges, private jets, political contributions, lobbyists, and even a new sports field.

But eventually Enron found itself often having to bet on the way prices would go, and when a number of its operations started losing money, it disguised these by using a maze of financial partnerships to conceal mounting debts.

Those "partnerships" bought business from Enron to hide the debts, but the hole was uncovered in 2001.

Financial wizard Fastow worked at a level just below Mr Skilling and Mr Lay, whose lawyers have issued new statements maintaining their innocence of any wrongdoing.

"Bottom line, if the truth is told, there still will be no case against Jeff Skilling," his attorney Bruce Hiler said.

Mr Lay's says it was a big company and he did not know the details of what was going on.

'Untruths shatter lives'

The top duo, among others, declined to testify before a US House committee looking into the Enron collapse on grounds of self-incrimination, but Mr Skilling did answer questions in February 2002.

He said he knew of no problems at Enron when he abruptly resigned in the summer of 2001, citing family reasons.

"The entire management and board of Enron have been labelled everything from hucksters to criminals," Mr Skilling said then, adding, "These untruths shatter lives and do nothing to advance the public understanding of Enron."

Fastow may have provided investigators with a big break

Despite his pleadings, what has enraged Americans as much as the financial sleight-of-hand was the amount of plunder taken by top executives.

Vast sums were paid to the top 200 executives - who received in total $1.4bn in salary, bonuses, and share options - more than the total losses declared by the company.

Many of them allegedly raked in massive profits, selling their shares before the price collapsed.

Mr Lay cashed in hundreds of millions of dollars of his own shares, but failed to warn others of the tidal wave that was heading their way.

Amid the mass layoffs, workers were left without jobs, and investors and pensioners stuck with worthless stock.

And now the company that wanted to rule the world is limping along in bankruptcy, selling off assets like its Houston headquarters, and shedding those remaining old-fashioned energy companies that once seemed so boring.