WorldCom Scandal

About WorldCom Scandal

WorldCom, a major telecommunications company, filed for bankruptcy in July 2002 after revealing 3.8 billion in accounting fraud. CEO Bernard Ebbers had inflated revenue and hidden expenses to maintain stock price. The total fraud eventually reached 11 billion. The bankruptcy was the largest in US history at the time. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison and died in 2020 while still in custody. The WorldCom and Enron scandals together transformed corporate governance and accounting standards. The company emerged from bankruptcy as MCI, which was later acquired by Verizon.