Former WorldCom chief executive Bernard Ebbers and finance chief Scott Sullivan had 'practically unlimited discretion' at the US telecoms giant before it collapsed amid accounting irregularities, according to court reports released last night.
A report by a court appointed examiner and an internal probe by WorldCom, renamed MCI earlier this year, put Ebbers' role at the company into far greater focus than earlier believed.
'The fraud was the consequence of the way WorldCom's chief executive officer, Bernard Ebbers, ran the company,' said an internal independent investigation team led by William McLucas of the law firm of Wilmer Cutler and Pickering.
'Though much of this report details the implementation of fraud by others, he was the source of the culture, as well as much of the pressure, that gave birth to this fraud,' the report added.
'WorldCom was dominated by Messrs. Ebbers and Sullivan, with virtually no checks or restraints placed on their actions by the board of directors or other management,' according to a separate report filed in bankruptcy court by examiner Dick Thornburgh.
