Document Chaos Isn't Sorted Out

Aimed at the world's financial heart, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were designed to throw capitalism into chaos. In one respect they succeeded: Millions of crucial documents were vaporized in the tragedy, and the process of sorting the losses out has been difficult and has included charges of opportunism.

A Citigroup(C Quote) lawyer, for instance, recently told a congressional committee looking into the bank's role in the WorldCom mess that she couldn't provide them with all the information they sought because some of it was destroyed in the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Some further email records the committee has requested cannot be retrieved," wrote Citigroup Deputy General Counsel Jane Sherburne in an Aug. 7 letter to House Committee on Financial Services. "The backup tapes for external emails from September 1998 through December 2000, and for a short time period in September 2001, were lost when the building in which they were stored (7 World Trade Center) was destroyed in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001."

Characteristic Troubles

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