Tenet Changes Counsel as Senate Closes In

The heavy workload for Tenet Healthcare's (THC Quote) top lawyer will soon get a whole lot lighter.

Lead counsel Christi Sulzbach -- accused of steering the company into legal and regulatory minefields -- will end her 20-year career at Tenet in November. News of Sulzbach's resignation came less than 24 hours after the U.S. Senate, one of several powerful bodies investigating the company, challenged Tenet's pledge to reform itself.

In a letter issued late Thursday to Tenet's nonexecutive chairman, Senate Finance Committee leader Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) blasted the company after it failed to deliver two sets of documents by a deadline that passed on Wednesday. When Grassley initiated the Tenet probe early this month, he ordered the company to supply an independent study of heart procedures conducted at Tenet's hospital in Redding, Calif., as well as business contracts with new heart doctors at the facility, before moving on to more voluminous requests next month. ...