NEW YORK — U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill called on company chief executives to castigate any of their peers whose actions undermine public trust and weaken investor confidence.
"Those of us who have been in business, and those of you who are in business, ought to be outspoken about your horror at what these people have done," O'Neill said at an AOL Time Warner Inc.-sponsored conference in New York.
O'Neill, the former chairman of Alcoa Inc., didn't single out individuals or companies. He's been the Bush administration's chief critic of management transgressions at companies such as Adelphia Communications Corp. and Enron Corp. Investor concern about corporate accountability has helped push the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 3.5 percent this year.
Company executives "should get on the tabletop and scream out against the abuses that have been done and make it clear this is not how we view life, this is not what we think is responsible behavior and we don't like it any better than anyone else," O'Neill said.
The bankruptcy last year of Enron and subsequent examples of corporate malfeasance has led to calls for new rules to improve disclosure. O'Neill said there is no legislative "silver bullet" that will prevent CEOs from hiding information from shareholders.
Government and industry regulators already are taking steps to curb abuses, O'Neill said.