On May 25, 2006, Chief Executive Officers Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffery K. Skilling were both convicted of fraud and conspiracy. “The conspiracy and fraud convictions would each carry a sentence of 5 to 10 years, along with the insider trading charge against Mr. Skilling which carries a maximum of 10 years (Barrionuevo, 2014). Lay and Skilling bear the majority of the blame because they made a management decision to encourage greed and fraud regardless of ethics. These men were very limited in their approach and were not qualified for their positions. The aftermath of the Enron affair changed the way business is conducted to this day, under the new Sarbanes and Oxley Act. Even though Sarbanes and Oxley have been passed, additional precautions still need to be taken. Enron's mistakes resulted in new laws being passed, but Enron faced many internal problems that led to its failure. Accounting played a significant role in the collapse of Enron. With the use of controversial accounting practices, Enron believed its finances to be much larger than they actually were. One of the key accounting practices was to decentralize operations and place them in a shell company, which allowed Enron to hide. No standard independent audits were conducted before the fraud years, which is a bit curious until you look at Enron's contribution to political candidates. . Enron used its political connections within Democratic and Republican administrations as well as on Wall Street, which allowed them to prepare fraudulent returns. “Since 1989, Enron has made a whopping $5.8 million in campaign donations, 73 percent to Republicans and 27 percent to Democrats (Follow the Enron money, 2002).” The money Enron spent bought favor with the most powerful people in America and gave them leverage to commit fraud wherever they found themselves.