Mark Palmer, an Enron spokesman, said on Friday that no energy-trading company had stopped doing business with Enron.

Several energy-trading companies, including Enron and the El Paso Corporation, have reduced their trading activity, making it harder for Morgan Stanley to make money in the business.

Enron, the energy-trading company, may be on the verge of extinction with the collapse yesterday of its proposed acquisition by Dynegy, a smaller competitor, and the downgrading of its debt to junk status.

And volume in its core North American natural gas and electricity trading operation plunged 20 percent as other energy-trading companies, unnerved by Enron's financial distress, steered business elsewhere.

Some analysts expressed hope that Enron's financial straits would encourage regulators to clear any deal, to relieve government officials of the prospect of dealing with the potential collapse of the nation's dominant energy-trading company.

Mr. Skilling, a former consultant at McKinsey & Company, joined Enron in 1990 and helped transform it into the largest energy-trading company in the world.

Another potential problem Andersen faces concerns Enron's relationship with other energy-trading companies, including Calpine, Dynegy and Mirant, which Andersen also audits.

Federal regulators also said today that they would investigate whether other energy-trading companies used the manipulative trading strategies described in the documents by lawyers for Enron, which is now in bankruptcy.

Whether Mr. Lay's gesture will placate Enron's traders, who are now deluging other energy-trading companies with résumés, remains to be seen.

The U.S. bankruptcy court for Manhattan approved the reorganization plan of notorious energy-trading company Enron, which is now likely to formally emerge from chapter 11 later this year.