Firms fined over Hatfield crash
Two 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
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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
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
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
Hollinger men face fraud charges
/0 Comments/in Hollinger International /by ceadminTwo former officials from Conrad Black’s media empire have been charged with allegedly diverting $32m (£17m) through bogus newspaper deals.
David Radler, ex-president of Hollinger International and Hollinger’s in-house lawyer Mark Kipnis face seven counts of fraud.
The two were indicted together with Conrad Black’s bankrupt holding company Ravelston Corporation
Net widens in Reebok insider case
/0 Comments/in Reebok /by ceadminUS financial regulators have named more defendants in a case involving alleged insider trading of shares in sports gear maker Reebok International.
“We have named eight additional defendants today,” said the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
One of the them is the nephew of a retired Croatian woman accused of insider trading in Reebok options
Experian rapped over credit offer
/0 Comments/in Experian /by ceadminUS financial information group Experian has settled charges that it deceived consumers into signing up to a credit monitoring service.
UK-owned Experian lured people into signing up to the service by offering them free credit reports, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said.
Consumers were not adequately informed that they would be tied into the credit monitoring service, the FTC said
Venezuela-Shell tax row heats up
/0 Comments/in Shell /by ceadminVenezuelan tax authorities have closed a Royal Dutch Shell office for 48 hours and asked for an injunction on some of the oil firm’s assets in a tax dispute.
The row centres on a $131m (£74m) bill for back taxes covering 2001-2004, presented to the oil giant in July.
Venezuela’s tax authority said it had put a hold on Shell goods worth $131m and shut its office in Lake Maracaibo