Big pension fund weighs in on reform.

• Position: Business Briefs

It isn't just the regulators and members of Congress who are looking hard at the Enron situation and sounding alarms about accounting and reporting practices. So are big institutional investors.

Take Calpers -- the California Public Employees' Retirement System -- a big kahuna with $172 billion in assets and holdings in more than 1,700 public companies. The giant pension fund says it will be "tightening the screws" on corporate directors and auditing firms in an attempt to prevent future debacles.

Specifically, the Calpers board has voted to:

* Oppose the election of any corporate director who, while sitting on a corporate audit committee, votes to approve retention of an external audit firm that also provides consulting or internal audit services to the company.

* Oppose shareholder approval of an auditor retained by a company for more than five years, or one that performs...