I also met with several companies from which we'd purchase our tools, and I attended many of their tool demos.
Experts at Arri and Panavision, the two motion-picture companies from which Dean rented cameras, were skeptical.
It wants to break the dominance of the state companies, from which it plans to demand much greater accountability.
The biggest losers are existing bondholders in companies from which private-equity firms are trying to take their money.
"It's not like we steal the patents from the inventors and the companies from which we buy them," he said.
Intel, one of the original chip companies, from which Silicon Valley gets its name, is based in Santa Clara, Calif.
The commissions in question were paid to Wombwell by the large insurance companies from which it secured coverage for the Commonwealth.
Mr. Liu said the five companies from which the fund withdrew were Alliant Techsystems, Olin, Forjas Taurus, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger.
The companies from which Mr. Ovitz unsuccessfully sought financial backing included AT&T and -- before its collapse -- the Enron Corporation, a former executive said.
DaimlerChrysler, based in Germany, is not on the list of 1,000 American companies from which the S.E.C. is seeking certification, said a Chrysler spokesman, Michael Aberlich.
But it then created shell companies, from which it pretended to have bought the items, and submitted significantly inflated bills from those companies for reimbursement, investigators said.
