So farewell Bernie Ebbers, former chief executive of WorldCom, the long–distance phone operator that became America’s biggest-ever bankruptcy case in 2002. Ebbers has died aged 78, having been released on health grounds in December from a 25-year jail sentence for his part in an accounting fraud that concealed the perilous state of WorldCom’s finances, misleading investors after a series of high-risk acquisitions by the bejewelled ‘telecom cowboy’ Ebbers during the dotcom boom.