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
£41m meters fine for National Grid
/0 Comments/in National Grid /by ceadminUK Power distributor National Grid has been fined £41.6m ($80m USD) for restricting competition in the UK’s gas metering market.
Energy regulator Ofgem said the company, which owns 99% of the UK’s gas meters, had “severely restricted” rival suppliers from replacing its equipment with cheaper or more advanced devices
EU regulator raids Intel offices
/0 Comments/in Intel /by ceadminIntel, the world’s biggest computer chipmaker, has been raided by European Union competition regulators amid claims it abused its market position.
Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel, said the regulators raided the company’s office in Munich, Germany.
Mr Mulloy said Intel was co-operating with the investigators
UK Southern Water fined 40million
/0 Comments/in Southern Water /by ceadminRegulators have confirmed a £20.3m ($40m USD) fine imposed on Southern Water for poor service and reporting misleading data.
Ofwat first announced the fine in November and confirmed it on Friday after a period of consultation
The AES Corporation in Panama
/0 Comments/in AES Corporation /by ceadminUser submitted article:
“Cultural Survival (www.cs.org) deal with indigenous rights issues
Korea jails Lone Star executive
/0 Comments/in Lone Star /by ceadminTexan private equity firm Lone Star has been found guilty of stock price manipulation by a South Korean court.
The Seoul court fined the Dallas-based company $27m (£13.6m) and sentenced Paul Yoo, the head of its Korean unit, to five years in prison
Intel faces inquiry in New York
/0 Comments/in Intel /by ceadminIntel, the world’s biggest computer chipmaker, is being investigated by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over whether it broke anti-trust laws.
Mr Cuomo is looking into claims that Intel stopped customers from dealing with rival Advanced Micro Devices.
Intel has cut prices and tried to boost efficiency as AMD has made efforts to become the world’s top producer
BA accused over air cargo cartel
/0 Comments/in British Airways /by ceadminBritish Airways has been accused of colluding in setting prices of fuel surcharges and other levies in the provision of air freight services.
BA confirmed it received a letter of complaint from European Union regulators, alleging that it was part of a suspected air freight cartel.
The complaints were also sent to Germany’s Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Scandinavia’s SAS
Norwich Union fined on £3m fraud
/0 Comments/in Norwich Union /by ceadminInsurance firm Norwich Union has been fined £1.26m ($2.5m) by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) after customers lost £3
Mitsubishi duo guilty over faults
/0 Comments/in Mitsubishi /by ceadminTwo ex-Mitsubishi members of staff have been found guilty of professional negligence over the death of a woman crushed by a wheel falling off a truck.
The Mitsubishi Fuso truck model was later recalled by the Japanese firm.
Hiroshi Murakawa, 61, and Hirotoshi Miki, 59, had been overseeing quality control at Mitsubishi Motors
US airline payout angers workers
/0 Comments/in United Airlines /by ceadminUnions representing workers at United Airlines have reacted with anger to the US carrier’s plans to pay a $250m (£123m) dividend to its shareholders.
Thousands of staff took pay cuts to help the airline rebuild its finances after it went into bankruptcy in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Union officials said the investor payout betrayed the efforts of staff to revive the airline’s reputation
Supermarkets admit milk price fix
/0 Comments/in Asda /by ceadminSupermarket firms Sainsbury’s and Asda have admitted that they were part of a dairy price-fixing group that earned about £270m ($550m) extra from shoppers.
The supermarkets, along with a number of dairy firms, have agreed to pay fines totalling some £116m ($240m) after an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) probe.
Cases against Tesco and Morrisons will continue after no deal was struck
Nigeria probes Siemens bribe case
/0 Comments/in Siemens /by ceadminA Nigerian anti-corruption agency has begun investigating former ministers alleged to have taken bribes from the German telecoms firm, Siemens.
Siemens was found guilty of paying bribes and was fined 201m euros ($248m) by a Munich court on 4 October.
Names on the court papers that emerged last week included Bello Mohammed Haliru, the late Haruna Elewi and Tajudeen Olanrewaju
BP fined $373m by US government
/0 Comments/in BP Amoco /by ceadminOil giant BP has been fined a total of $373m (£182m) by the US Department of Justice for environmental crimes and committing fraud.
The fines include $50m relating to a Texas refinery explosion in 2005 that killed 15 people and injured 170 more.
That sum is the highest fine of its kind levied under the Clean Air Act
Cisco raided in tax dodge probe
/0 Comments/in Cisco /by ceadminThe Brazilian headquarters of computer network equipment maker Cisco Systems has been raided as part of an investigation into tax evasion.
Authorities believe the unit may have imported $500m worth of equipment over the past five years without properly paying import duties.
The firm said its Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro offices had been temporarily closed and some staff detained
Lloyds sued for money-laundering
/0 Comments/in Lloyds TSB /by ceadminLloyds TSB says it will vigorously defend a money-laundering lawsuit brought by US prosecutors.
Lloyds and Bank of Cyprus face civil charges alleging they helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars from a securities fraud.
The US government is seeking penalties of at least $162m from Bank of Cyprus and $130m from Lloyds, which said the legal action was without basis
Top Chinese businessman arrested
/0 Comments/in Sinopec /by ceadminThe former head of Chinese oil firm Sinopec, who stepped down unexpectedly in June, has been arrested.
Officials confirmed that Chen Tonghai had been detained for questioning, but did not explain why.
Following Mr Chen’s decision to quit for “personal reasons”, state media reported that he was being investigated for “financial problems”
United “hoodwinked” staff out of pensions
/0 Comments/in United Airlines /by ceadminIn 2005 United Airlines terminated its employee pension plans, creating the single largest corporate pension default in U.S. history
StatoilHydro head quits on probe
/0 Comments/in Statoil /by ceadminThe head of newly-created StatoilHydro has resigned amid a probe into possible corruption over contracts in Libya.
Eivind Reiten, who is also the head of Norsk Hydro, said he had to step down to avoid a conflict of interest.
The probe started on Monday, when the company – formed when Statoil acquired Norsk Hydro’s oil and gas division – first listed its shares
Siemens fined after bribery probe
/0 Comments/in Siemens /by ceadminSiemens has been fined 210m euros ($248m; £145.5m) by a German court following an investigation over whether workers paid bribes to gain contracts.
Siemens also agreed to pay 179m euros to the tax authorities, after a failure to declare payments properly
Bristol-Myers to pay $515m fine
/0 Comments/in Bristol-Myers Squibb /by ceadminUS drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and a subsidiary have agreed to pay more than $515m (£251.7m) to settle allegations of marketing certain drugs illegally.
The fines issued by the US Department of Justice mark the end of a probe into the firm’s drug pricing practices that began a number of years ago
Ofwat to fine Thames Water £12m
/0 Comments/in Thames Water /by ceadminThames Water is facing a fine of more than £12m for “inadequate” reporting and customer service.
Water watchdog Ofwat said it planned to fine Thames £11.1m for failing to provide “robust information”
Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal
/0 Comments/in Microsoft Corporation /by ceadminMicrosoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute.
The European Court of First Instance upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position.
A probe concluded in 2004 that Microsoft was guilty of freezing out rivals in server software and products such as media players
Dell restates profits after probe
/0 Comments/in Dell /by ceadminComputer company Dell has said it will restate four year’s worth of accounts because figures were tweaked so that the firm could meet earnings targets.
Dell said that the changes would cut about $150m (£75m) from its net profit, less than many analysts had predicted.
An audit found that “certain adjustments appear to have been motivated by the objective of attaining financial targets”, Dell explained
BA’s price-fix fine reaches $550 million
/0 Comments/in British Airways /by ceadminBritish Airways has been fined about $550 (£270m) after it admitted collusion in fixing the prices of fuel surcharges.
The US Department of Justice has fined it $300m (£148m) for colluding on how much extra to charge on passenger and cargo flights, to cover fuel costs.
It followed a decision by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading to fine BA $250m (£121
EU outlines Intel market abuse
/0 Comments/in Intel /by ceadminIntel abused its dominant position in Europe by giving customers incentives to favour its products over those of its main competitor, regulators allege.
The initial findings of a probe by the European Commission has concluded the chip firm engaged in anti-competitive action to thwart principal rival AMD.
Regulators have the power to fine Intel up to 10% of annual turnover if they find it guilty of stifling competition
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.