Final WorldCom Board Member Settles
Former WorldCom board member Bert Roberts agreed this week to pay $4.5 million of his own money to settle a lawsuit brought by former investors in the collapsed telecommunications company.
Roberts became the last former board member of the company to settle with the investors. Last week, 11 other former board members agreed to pay $20 million from their own pockets to resolve their parts of the lawsuit. Insurance companies that covered the 11 board members agreed to pay an additional $35 million.
Major investment banks also have agreed to pay more than $6 billion in similar settlements.
The Arthur Andersen auditing firm stands as the only remaining defendant in the suit.
The lawsuit, led by New York state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, claims the banks that underwrote WorldCom Inc. securities, in addition to the former board members and the auditing firm, should have known about WorldCom’s fraud.
WorldCom collapsed in an $11 billion accounting fraud in 2002. Former CEO Bernard Ebbers, 63, was convicted last week of orchestrating the fraud.
WorldCom, which was based in Clinton, Miss., has since re-emerged as MCI Inc., based in Ashburn, Va.
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