It took just five weeks after the WorldCom accounting scandal erupted in 2002 for the U.S. Congress to pass, and President George W. Bush to sign, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It took three more years for Bernard Ebbers, the man who built WorldCom into a giant, to be sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the fraud. Mr. Ebbers will be 85 before he is eligible to be released from prison.
