One such company is the Loewen Group, the world's second-largest funeral-services company, which is based in Vancouver.

ECONOMIST: Black Baptists

After a short career in financial journalism, he founded the first Canadian institutional brokerage company, Loewen Ondaatje McCutcheon.

ECONOMIST: Museum sponsorship

Then they went on a buying binge that left Loewen on the brink of bankruptcy and Service Corp. saddled with rising costs and falling earnings.

FORBES: Grave dancer

So when Loewen was buying cemeteries for ever-escalating prices-the Vancouver, B.

FORBES: Grave dancer

Locked in a market-share battle with its Canadian rival, the Loewen Group--now in bankruptcy--Service Corp. bought thousands of funeral homes in the 1990s, hitting a pace of more than 20 a week in 1995.

FORBES: Buried Trouble

As one company executive testified, Mr Lyons and Ms Edwards once threatened to hold a press conference on the steps of Congress denouncing Loewen executives as racists if they failed to go on paying.

ECONOMIST: Black Baptists

At Toronto-based securities firm Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Ltd.

WSJ: Mining Woes Snag Financial Firms

International and Loewen Group.

FORBES: Grave dancer