WorldCom Settlements Approved

A federal judge Wednesday approved legal settlements that would return more than $6.1 billion to investors who suffered losses in the massive WorldCom Inc. accounting fraud.

The deals, approved by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, will divide payments among approximately 830,000 people and institutions that held stocks or bonds in the telecommunications company around the time of its collapse in 2002.

The judge said the settlements were “of historic proportions.”

Money for the payouts will come from a long list of defendants, including investment banks, auditing firms and former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers, who was convicted of fraud this year and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Under the settlement, Ebbers will give up many of his personal assets, including a multimillion-dollar home in Mississippi and his interests in a lumber company, a marina, a golf course, a hotel and several thousand acres of timberland.

The largest chunks of the settlements were a previously approved $2.58-billion payment by Citigroup Inc. and a $2-billion payment by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Investors said the companies, which were among those that underwrote or traded WorldCom securities, should have been aware of the fraud.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs reached the settlement deals independently with the various defendants over the last year, but needed the judge’s permission to begin collecting payments.