ASHBURN, Va.-MCI Corp., formerly known as WorldCom Inc., has reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its accounting fraud case and will pay $500 million in fines when it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, expected later this year.
The tentative settlement must be approved by the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
WorldCom was involved in one of the largest cases of accounting fraud last year when it admitted to improper accounting and overstating $9 billion in earnings. The SEC actually fined the company $1.51 billion, but reduced the payment to $500 million because MCI is in bankruptcy.
Last week, MCI won a mobile-phone contract in Iraq from the U.S. government. The company was a paging and mobile-phone reseller before exiting the wireless business.
