Banking, Finance & Services

A revised indictment, handed up last October, accused the 19 of "devising, marketing and implementing fraudulent tax shelters" as well as preparing "false and fraudulent" income tax returns containing the shelter losses, and with hiding all of this from the government. The case is the largest criminal tax case ever filed by the government. Read More

Spectacular. Bad-boy investment celebrity Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money with Jim Cramer," actually recommended today investing in "mine-safety" stocks. Not because it is important for us as a country to pick up the slack left by a "paper tiger" federal mine safety agency, but because there could be lots of dough in it. Read More

Government lawyers who will try the case against Enron's former chief executives, Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, have signaled that they intend to spend less time befuddling jurors with talk of Enron's accounting. Read More

A group of female employees on Monday filed a $1.4 billion discrimination suit Monday against Germany's Dresdner Bank AG, claiming women are denied equal pay and promotions at the investment bank.The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims that women aren't allowed to advance to senior levels Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the bank's securities unit. About 1% of women who work in its Capital Markets Division are managing directors, compared with 15% of their 1,700 male counterparts, according to the complaint, which is seeking class-action status. Read More

Four years after the company's ignominious collapse, Enron's former top executives are about to head to a climactic criminal trial later this month, serving as a reminder that changes in the behavior of many American companies have been more muted than many once expected. Read More

The plea bargain last week by former Enron Chief Accounting Officer Richard Causey gives federal prosecutors the chance to present a shorter and less technical case against former company Chairman Kenneth Lay and former President Jeffrey Skilling. The pair's trial on conspiracy, fraud and other charges is scheduled to start in Houston on Jan. 30. Read More

It's a new year and the fate of Wal-Mart Bank still hangs in the balance. Read More

German financial giant Deutsche Bank has agreed to a $270 million settlement of claims that it participated in a complex securities fraud orchestrated by a fugitive Saudi arms merchant that bankrupted Minneapolis-based securities firm Stockwalk Group four years ago. Read More

In many parts of California, moving merely across the street could cause drivers' car-insurance rates to go up. This is especially the case if the new address is in a zip code with an even slight increase in the percentage of black or Latino residents, a study has found. Read More

West African cotton farmers are among those hardest hit by government subsidized corporate agriculture. This week in Hong Kong, trade ministers from the 148 members of the World Trade Organization meet to discusss this and other global free trade issues. Read More