DTI 'told in 1999 about WorldCom'

BRITISH regulatory authorities are under fire in Washington for failing to alert US regulators to problems at WorldCom. It was revealed today that a whistleblower warned them three years ago about accounting irregularities in the company's London office.

Book-keeper Geraldine Kelly, 51, contacted the Department of Trade and Industry in 1999 to complain she was being ordered to misapply expenditures, at a rate of about $400,000 (£273,000) a month, to make WorldCom appear more profitable than it was.

She quit WorldCom in 1999, secretly taking with her documents to support her claim. These are now being examined by the Congressional committee in Washington investigating the WorldCom scandal. A committee spokesman told the New York Post: 'If the British Department of Trade and Industry had notified us, perhaps all this financial pain could have been avoided, or at the very least nipped in the bud.'