The ethical — maybe criminal — core of the scandal is that Enron trapped its employees into a 'stock-lock', whereby they were not allowed to sell share options bought by way of savings. When the company collapsed, they lost everything. Meanwhile, Enron's executives — blessed by inside information and foresight — made a killing by scrambling to sell shares before the price collapsed.
—Ed Vulliamy, "Price of Power," The Observer, January 13, 2002
One key question resolves around what Mark Iwry, the senior Treasury official responsible for national retirement savings policy and regulation from 1995 to 2001, refers to as "stock lock." This occurs when a company makes its contribution in its stock and limits workers' ability to diversify out of it. "The law needs to change to give employees the choice [of diversifying] within a reasonable time," Iwry said.
—Albert B. Crenshaw, "All the Nest Eggs in One Basket," The Washington Post, December 23, 2001
There are two similar phrases floating around in the economic ether:
stock lock-up and
stock lock-in. However, as near as my high-finance-challenged brain can figure, these refer to a provision whereby an employee can't sell their stocks within a certain number of days after a company has launched an initial public offering.
With that in mind,
