Speaking at a special session of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates
conference, Butler called this "a watershed moment in the history of our capital markets," and urged all participants in the Enron crisis to share responsibility for the current situation and to take an active role in restoring confidence.   

"We can't restore confidence by simply doing better audits of information that is not relevant to investors or can't be understood by them," said Butler. 

In general, Butler's "constructive reforms" were similar to those recommended by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Securities and Exchange Commission and Andersen:

-- Getting the Financial Accounting Standards Board to act faster to fix flaws in current accounting that have the harmful effect of offering less disclosure than is needed, and to move to broaden the business reporting model to provide more information on intangible assets, leading indicators, and corporate risks and opportunities.

-- More involvement by the investor community in standard setting and alternative funding structures for standard setting.

-- A new financial reporting model and encouragement from the SEC for companies to experiment with new types of non-financial disclosures, more timely and frequent ways of disclosing information to investors, and appropriate safe harbors to encourage innovation and protect against frivolous lawsuits.

-- Keep pace with the evolution of businesses and markets by investing in the research and development necessary to reinvent the audit, to cover a wider bandwidth of business information and to permit real-time assurance.

"Despite the current noise in the system, we must start with the premise that we're all hurt by what's going on, and we need to work together to make it right," Butler said.

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