Meta joins a list of corporations that have settled cases for billions of dollars

Tech giant Meta this week agreed to pay $17 billion as part of a settlement to end a landmark trial related to safeguards for younger users of social media. It is one of the largest such settlements ever, though it represents only a fraction of the $201 billion in revenue that the company booked last year. Here’s a look at some other notable corporate settlements.

BP and the Deepwater Horizon disaster Oil giant BP agreed to pay $20 billion for the Deepwater Horizon disaster that became the worst offshore spill in the nation’s history. The settlement, first announced in 2016, included $5.5 billion in civil Clean Water Act penalties and billions more to cover environmental damage and other claims by the five Gulf states and local governments. The money is to be paid out over roughly 16 years.

Enron and its massive accounting scandal Enron, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, after years of accounting tricks could no longer hide billions of dollars in debt or make failing ventures appear profitable. The energy company’s collapse put more than 5,000 people out of work and wiped out more than $2 billion in employee pensions. Twenty-four Enron executives, including former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted for their roles in the fraud.

A class-action lawsuit led to the recovery of more than $7 billion in funds. WorldCom hid falling profits in one of the worst cases of accounting fraud WorldCom Inc. collapsed and went into bankruptcy in 2002 following revelations of an $11 billion accounting fraud that included pressure from top executives on subordinates to inflate numbers to make the company seem more profitable.

The collapse caused losses to stockholders, including those who had invested through retirement plans. In 2005, the company agreed to pay shareholders about $750 million in cash and stock, while major banks and accounting firms settled for about $6 billion. WorldCom’s former CEO, Bernie Ebbers was convicted in New York in 2005 on securities fraud and other charges and received a 25-year sentence.

He died in 2020, just over a month after his early release from prison. After its collapse, WorldCom reemerged under a new name, MCI. It was taken over by Verizon and relocated its operations to Ashburn, Virginia.