Bank to pay $461m over WorldCom

March 04, 2005
Tims
From James Doran, Wall Street Correspondent



BANK of America yesterday agreed to pay $461 million (£240 million) to settle a lawsuit accusing it of hiding risks from WorldCom investors when it helped the phone company to sell billions of dollars of bonds.

The settlement is the second in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2002 on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people who bought WorldCom stock and bonds before the company sought bankruptcy protection. Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, last year paid $2.58 billion.

The announcement came as a New York jury heard closing arguments in the trial of Bernie Ebbers, WorldCom’s former chief executive, who is charged with masterminding the fraud at the company.

The court was told that witnesses who testified against Mr Ebbers were liars trying to avoid jail. Summing up his case, the defence lawyer, Reid Weingarten, attacked the statements made by the 14 prosecution witnesses.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1510176,00.html

Martha Stewart goes to jail for a minor insider trading that didn't bankrupt anyone. The total gain was something like $20,000.

Meanwhile, all the scum who destroyed hundreds of thousands of people's careers and retirement accounts from billions of dollars of fraud at Worldcom, Enron and others are still walking free. What is wrong with this picture?

Here's an alternate
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3067535

If they can get about a 1000 more of these we'll have a budget surplus!