MCI Inc.

MCI (formerly WorldCom and MCI WorldCom ) was the world's third- largest phone company, headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia.

The acquisition of MCI by WorldCom and MCI WorldCom merger to was the then most expensive corporate takeover with about DM 60 billion. In Germany, the MCI WorldCom Germany GmbH, since 2004 MCI Germany GmbH. Since January 2006, it operates in Germany under Verizon Germany GmbH.

Stock market scandal and consequences

The company has triggered one of the largest initial public scandals in the summer of 2002. It filed for bankruptcy on July 21, 2002 the bankruptcy court in New York South creditor protection under U.S. bankruptcy law. There were a total uncovered accounting errors of 11 billion U.S. dollars by the SEC. The company's founder and at the time the company's CEO, Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison; the then finance and accounting chief Scott Sullivan to 5 years. After 1 ½ years of bankruptcy protection ( "Chapter 11"), MCI has been renovated and taken over by Verizon Communications. In January 2006, the merger between Verizon Communications and MCI was completed. The new business unit operates under the name Verizon Business, which is partially divided into national companies. For Germany, this is the Verizon Germany GmbH.

The stock market scandal was decisive for the adoption of the Sarbanes -Oxley Act to regulate and monitor, among other things of companies whose shares are traded in the U.S. stock exchanges.