WorldCom accounting scandal
E126393
The WorldCom accounting scandal was a massive early-2000s corporate fraud case in which the telecommunications giant inflated its earnings by billions of dollars, becoming one of the largest accounting scandals in U.S. history and helping spur major reforms in financial regulation.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| WorldCom accounting scandal canonical | 2 |
| WorldCom scandal | 2 |
| WorldCom board of directors | 1 |
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
accounting scandal
ⓘ
corporate fraud case ⓘ financial scandal ⓘ securities fraud case ⓘ |
| amountInvolved |
over 3.8 billion US dollars initially disclosed
ⓘ
over 7 billion US dollars eventually identified ⓘ |
| announcedBy |
WorldCom, Inc.
ⓘ
surface form:
WorldCom
|
| auditor | Arthur Andersen ⓘ |
| bankruptcyFilingDate | July 21 2002 ⓘ |
| bankruptcySignificance | one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history at the time ⓘ |
| bankruptcyType | Chapter 11 bankruptcy ⓘ |
| consequence |
MCI later acquired by Verizon Communications
ⓘ
WorldCom rebranded as MCI after bankruptcy ⓘ |
| cooperation | Scott Sullivan cooperated with prosecutors ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criminalCharge |
conspiracy
ⓘ
filing false reports with the SEC ⓘ securities fraud ⓘ |
| discoveryDate | June 2002 ⓘ |
| endDate | 2002 ⓘ |
| fraudType |
earnings manipulation
ⓘ
improper capitalization of expenses ⓘ overstatement of assets ⓘ understatement of line costs ⓘ |
| impact |
greater scrutiny of telecom accounting practices
ⓘ
job losses for employees ⓘ loss of confidence in financial reporting ⓘ losses for shareholders ⓘ |
| industry | telecommunications ⓘ |
| keyExecutive |
Bernard Ebbers
ⓘ
Scott Sullivan ⓘ |
| ledTo |
Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002
ⓘ
WorldCom bankruptcy ⓘ increased corporate governance reforms ⓘ restatement of WorldCom financial statements ⓘ stricter auditing standards in the United States ⓘ |
| mainCompanyInvolved |
WorldCom, Inc.
ⓘ
surface form:
WorldCom
|
| method |
capitalizing line costs that should have been expensed
ⓘ
making unsupported top-side accounting entries ⓘ |
| oversightBody |
WorldCom accounting scandal
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
WorldCom board of directors
|
| positionOfBernardEbbers | Chief Executive Officer of WorldCom ⓘ |
| positionOfScottSullivan | Chief Financial Officer of WorldCom ⓘ |
| regulator |
Securities and Exchange Commission
ⓘ
surface form:
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
|
| relatedTo | Enron accounting scandal ⓘ |
| restatementPeriod | 1999 to first quarter 2002 financial results ⓘ |
| sentenceForBernardEbbers | 25 years in prison ⓘ |
| startDate | 1999 ⓘ |
| timePeriod | early 2000s ⓘ |
| trialOutcomeForBernardEbbers | convicted in 2005 ⓘ |
| trialOutcomeForScottSullivan | pleaded guilty ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: WorldCom accounting scandal Description of subject: The WorldCom accounting scandal was a massive early-2000s corporate fraud case in which the telecommunications giant inflated its earnings by billions of dollars, becoming one of the largest accounting scandals in U.S. history and helping spur major reforms in financial regulation.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
WorldCom scandal
WorldCom accounting scandal
→
oversightBody
→
WorldCom accounting scandal
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
WorldCom board of directors