WorldCom execs earned $104m in salaries amid accounting fraud

WorldCom Inc executives earned $104m (€107m) in salaries, bonuses, and share sales even as the bankrupt telecoms group was using questionable accounting techniques to inflate its earnings by billions of dollars, the Financial Times reported in its online edition, without citing sources.

The payments, half of which were in the form of profits on the sale of share options in 1999, have renewed relevance after WorldCom revealed a further $3.3bn (€3.4bn) in improper accounting stretching back as early as 1999.

The disclosure takes the total accounting fraud at WorldCom to $7.6bn (€7.7bn) in just over three years, and raises the prospect that investigators may uncover further manipulation of profits for 1999 and earlier years, the report said.

Separately, Reed Weingarten, lawyer of former WorldCom chief executive Bernie Ebbers, today insisted his client was not involved in the fraud. "The chief executive of a company with 60,000 employees can't know about every decision that is made," he said on CNBC, the business television channel.

"Accounting decisions are arcane. They're mysterious for people who are not trained in the science," Weingarten added.