Ericsson risked workers lives by Islamic State
/0 Comments/in Ericsson /by ceadminThe telecoms company Ericsson put contractors’ lives at risk by insisting they continued working in territory controlled by the Islamic State [IS] group in Iraq. This resulted in them being kidnapped by IS militants.
Post Office scandal: Public inquiry to examine wrongful convictions
/0 Comments/in Post Office /by ceadminBetween 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a flaw in a computer system Horizon.
Search for company, person, or country
US dating agencies sued for fraud
/0 Comments/in Match.com /by ceadminTwo major online dating agencies are being sued for alleged fraud and malpractice in the United States.
Match.com has been accused of sending bogus emails to clients and using their own staff to attend some dates – the practice known as “date bait”
New York bank settles fraud case
/0 Comments/in Bank of New York /by ceadminThe oldest bank in the US, the Bank of New York, has agreed to pay $38m (£21m) to resolve long-running fraud and money-laundering investigations.
The bank will forfeit $26m to the government and pay $12m to victims of the fraud, prosecutors said.
The case dates back to 1999, when two of bank employees helped launder $7bn from Russia through several accounts
Fraud probe at Severn Trent Water
/0 Comments/in Severn Trent Water /by ceadminThe Serious Fraud Office has begun an investigation into Severn Trent Water.
The office was contacted by water watchdog Ofwat which has been holding its own investigation into the company after allegations from an employee.
The allegations concern fears the water company provided unreliable information, particularly accounting inaccuracies, to Ofwat
Watchdog probes BAWAG’s loan to Refco boss
/0 Comments/in BAWAG /by ceadminFinancial watchdogs have launched an inquiry into Austrian bank BAWAG’s 350m euro ($418m; £237m) loan to the ex-boss of crisis-hit US finance firm Refco.
Austrian regulators are investigating if BAWAG followed proper rules when it granted the loan to Phillip Bennett.
Refco has been struggling since its former chief executive was charged with fraud and concealing a $430m loan ahead of a stock market flotation
Midway Trading admits oil-for-food bribe
/0 Comments/in Midway Trading /by ceadminA US oil trading company has pleaded guilty to involvement in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal and agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 (£141,000).
Midway Trading was accused of paying $400,000 in bribes to Iraqi officials for oil purchases under the UN scheme.
The scheme was devised to let Saddam Hussein sell oil and buy humanitarian goods while sanctions were in force
Firms fined over Hatfield crash
/0 Comments/in Balfour Beatty /by ceadminTwo firms have been fined a total of £13.5m for breaching health and safety regulations over the 2000 Hatfield train crash, in which four people died.
Network Rail, formerly Railtrack, was fined £3
News Corp sued over ‘poison pill’
/0 Comments/in News Corp /by ceadminInstitutional investors have sued Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp claiming it reneged on a promise to protect shareholders when it moved to the US.
Investors allege the group failed to get their approval to extend measures to protect it against a takeover.
Last year, News Corp vowed not to extend this “poison pill” beyond a year if investors backed a move to the US
Yukos offices are raided in probe
/0 Comments/in Yukos /by ceadminOffices of oil giant Yukos in Russia and the Netherlands have been raided as part of an inquiry into allegations that up to $7bn (£4bn) was laundered.
Prosecutors said four offices in the Moscow region, as well as a subsidiary in Amsterdam, were involved.
Investigators said they were looking into claims that money was stolen and taken abroad from 2000 to 2003
Peugeot Citroen hit with EU fine
/0 Comments/in Peugeot Citroen /by ceadminThe European Commission has ordered French car group PSA Peugeot Citroen to pay a 49.5m euros ($59m; £34m) fine for breaking competition rules.
Brussels found that the firm’s Peugeot and Citroen marques blocked the cross-border sale of new cars from the Netherlands, where prices are cheapest
Oracle settles Insider Trading lawsuit
/0 Comments/in Oracle Corporation /by ceadminA San Mateo Superior Court judge on Monday postponed signing off on an $100 million settlement agreement between Oracle founder Larry Ellison and Oracle shareholders over an insider trading lawsuit.
Instead, Judge Jonathan Schwartz will review the matter on Nov. 15 and issue his decision on whether to accept the agreement hammered out by the parties
Tyco two get up to 25 years’ jail
/0 Comments/in Tyco /by ceadminTwo former bosses of US manufacturer Tyco have been sentenced to up to 25 years in jail for stealing more than $150m (£82m) from the company.
Former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski and finance chief Mark Swartz were taken from the court in handcuffs.
They were also ordered to repay most of the money, which they spent on expensive jewellery, luxury apartments and giant $2m Mediterranean parties
Olympic Air in appeal against EU
/0 Comments/in Olympic Air /by ceadminAiling airline Olympic is to appeal against a European Commission ruling that it received illegal state aid and must repay it to the Greek government.
The announcement was made by the Greek Transport Minister Mihalis Liapis, who did not specify whether the government would also be appealing.
Brussels ruled last week that Olympic must repay up to 540m euros ($663m; £364m) to the Greek administration
BAE ‘payments to Pinochet firms’
/0 Comments/in BAE Systems /by ceadminUK arms manufacturer BAE has paid over £1m to front companies for the Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, documents obtained by the Guardian show.
Three companies linked to Gen Pinochet were getting money from the UK defence giant as late as June last year.
The documents show that between December 1997 and October 2004 BAE paid $1,998,871 (£1
Tribunal upholds Shell criticism
/0 Comments/in Shell /by ceadminFormer Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts has lost an appeal against the UK’s city watchdog over how it handled the probe into Shell’s oil reserves crisis.
Sir Philip was forced to step down in January 2004 after the oil giant cut its reserves estimates by 20%.
Sir Philip accused the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of violating his rights by fining Shell £17m without giving him the opportunity to respond
Wal-Mart hit by ‘sweatshop’ claim
/0 Comments/in Wal-Mart /by ceadminUS retail giant Wal-Mart has been hit with a lawsuit that claims it ignores sweatshop conditions at many of its suppliers’ factories around the world.
The class-action suit has been filed in Los Angeles on behalf of 15 workers in Bangladesh, Swaziland, Indonesia, China and Nicaragua.
Each claims they were paid less than the minimum wage and not given overtime payments
Accountants face charges in Kanebo case
/0 Comments/in PricewaterhouseCoopers /by ceadminProsecutors are set to seek criminal charges against several certified public accountants at a Japan unit of the PricewaterhouseCoopers group, suspecting that they collaborated with executives at Kanebo Ltd in an accounting fraud that has humbled what was once a premier cosmetics and textile company, investigative sources said Saturday.
The sources said the accountants at Tokyo-based ChuoAoyama PricewaterhouseCoopers worked together with two executives in producing consolidated financial statements that concealed 81.9 billion yen in capital deficit in fiscal 2001 and 80
China bank named in N Korea probe
/0 Comments/in Bank of China /by ceadminChina’s number two bank, Bank of China, has been named in media reports as the subject of a US inquiry into an illicit North Korean fund-raising network.
The bank is suspected by the US of links to criminal syndicates helping to finance Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The bank and two others based in Macau were caught up in a major US operation to shut down the trade, the paper said
Securities watchdog charge Kanebo with accounting fraud
/0 Comments/in Kanebo /by ceadminThe Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission filed a criminal accusation of accounting fraud Wednesday against Kanebo Ltd. and three former executives of the textile and cosmetics company now undergoing rehabilitation.
The three executives — former President Takashi Hoashi, 69, former Vice President Takashi Miyahara, 63, and former Managing Director Kenzaburo Shimada, 59 — were arrested July 29 for allegedly submitted falsified financial statements to financial authorities
Yahoo ‘helped jail China writer’
/0 Comments/in Yahoo /by ceadminInternet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for “divulging state secrets”.
Reporters Without Borders said Yahoo’s Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao’s e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information.
The media watchdog accused Yahoo of becoming a “police informant” in order to further its business ambitions
Regulator slams Mastercard fees
/0 Comments/in MasterCard International /by ceadminMastercard and the banks issuing its credit cards have been overcharging their customers, according to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
The fee levied on retailers to recover the costs of the card system was too high, the watchdog says.
Consequently, all Mastercard purchases in the UK between March 2000 and November 2004 were overcharged
KPMG fined $456m for tax misdeeds
/0 Comments/in KPMG /by ceadminGlobal accounting giant KPMG has agreed to pay a $456m fine to settle a case related to past tax shelter sales.
The deal means KPMG will avoid potentially crippling criminal charges.
But prosecutors have charged nine people – mainly former KPMG executives – with conspiring to defraud US tax authorities in relation to the case
Transco fined £15m ($27m) for gas blast
/0 Comments/in Transco /by ceadminUtility firm Transco has been fined £15m – a UK record – after being convicted on a charge arising from an explosion which killed four people.
Andrew and Janette Findlay and their children Stacey, 13, and Daryl, 11, died in the explosion in Larkhall, South Lanarkshire, in December 1999.
Transco was found guilty after a six-month trial in Edinburgh of breaching health and safety laws
SEC charges two Kmart ex-bosses
/0 Comments/in Kmart /by ceadminUS watchdogs have charged two ex-top executives of Kmart with fraud in the lead up to the retailer’s bankruptcy.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused ex-chief executive Charles Conway and ex-finance chief John MacDonald of misleading investors.
The men made “materially false” statements about Kmart’s ability to pay its bills in the lead up the firm’s bankruptcy in 2002, the SEC alleged
AOL pays out after Spitzer probe
/0 Comments/in AOL TimeWarner /by ceadminThe world’s largest internet service provider America Online (AOL) has vowed to reform its customer service after agreeing to settle a US lawsuit.
It follows an investigation by New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer into complaints that AOL ignored people who wanted to cancel the service.
AOL will provide refunds to all the 300 customers who complained and will pay New York State $1
Drug bosses face civil fraud suit
/0 Comments/in Bristol-Myers Squibb /by ceadminTwo former directors of US drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb are been sued for civil damages after being accused of masterminding a $1.5bn ($833m) fraud.
The Securities and Exchange Commission watchdog alleges that Frederick Schiff and Richard Lane devised a scheme to inflate sales and profits at the firm
The whistleblowing bankers who were sent to jail
/0 Comments/in Barclaycard, United Kingdom, United States /by ceadminTwo traders jailed for rigging interest rates were the original whistleblowers of the scandal, and not the bosses that directed them to carry out the illegal actions. Leaked audio recordings reveal Peter Johnson and Colin Bermingham alerted the US central bank to a fraud that the tapes suggest was directed from the top of the financial system.