The WorldCom Fraud

Paper Summary:

The paper relates that the Bernard Ebbers conviction in the WorldCom scandal was considered to be a landmark success in the fight against corporate fraud. The paper discusses how Ebbers' harsh sentence appears to have set new boundaries on CEO liability. The paper then examines the case with the approach of utilitarian and deontological ethics.

From the Paper:

"On March 15th, 2005, Bernard Ebbers was found guilty on all chargers pertaining to an accounting fraud perpetrated at his company, WorldCom, between 1999 and 2002. The basis of these charges was the overstatement of revenues and the understatement of expenses in order to improve the bottom line of Worldcom. The fraud was committed by a group of individuals in Worldcom's accounting department under the direction of CFO Scott Sullivan. By the time the fraud was discovered, Worldcom's assets were reportedly overstated by $11 million. Sullivan and the others all plead guilty; Ebbers went to trial and was found guilty. He had attempted to feign ignorance of the situation, famously claiming that he knows what he doesn't know, and he doesn't know accounting."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Crawford, Krysten. (2005). Ex-Worldcom CEO Ebbers Guilty. CNN. Retrieved September 30, 2008 from http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/15/news/newsmakers/ebbers/
• Associated Press. (2005). Ebbers Senteced to 25 Years in Prison. MSNBC. Retrieved September 30, 2008 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8474930/
• Mill, John Stuart. (1863). Utilitarianism. Retrieved September 30, 2008 from http://www.utilitarianism.org/mill1.htm
• Associated Press. (2005). Ebbers' Banker Tells of Troubled Loans. New York Times Retrieved September 30, 2008 from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/business/02ebbers.html

More papers on The WorldCom Fraud:

• Analytical Essay # 113688 : "The Worldcom Fraud Scandal"
• Essay # 59859 : "The WorldCom Scandal"
• Analytical Essay # 146426 : "WorldCom: Breaking a Promise"

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