Eleven former board members of WorldCom Inc. agreed to settle a lawsuit related to the company’s accounting fraud by paying $20.2 million out of their own pockets.

The agreement, reached late Friday, is the latest in a string of settlements in a class-action case led by New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi. The suit aims at getting compensation from underwriters, former board members and the telecom company’s former auditor Arthur Andersen LLP, saying they did not fullfil their duties to oversee the company and examine its books.

A number of banks that underwrote WorldCom bonds in 2000 and 2001, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., have made settlements of $6 billion altogether, which was a record sum for a securities class action, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It seldom occurs that board members are to pay out of their own pockets in such lawsuits, and the WorldCom settlement, first disclosed in January, caused anxiety among chief executives. Besides the money collection from the former directors, the settlement forces insurers that insured the former board members with liability coverage to payment of $35 million.