THE Wall Street Journal, America's leading financial newspaper, has been ordered to pay a record $222.7 million (£141 million) in damages after it was found guilty of libelling a brokerage firm that subsequently went out of business.

The damages awarded by a federal jury in Houston, Texas, are almost four times the previous record for a libel judgment.

The Houston jury ruled that the Wall Street Journal libelled Money Management Analytical Research, in an October 1993 story that alleged the company was being investigated by regulators over a series of alleged improprieties.