Banking, Finance & Services

One of Germany's biggest banks is at the center of an intensifying money-laundering investigation into whether Russian telecommunications assets now worth hundreds of millions of dollars were diverted through a company set up by a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read More

The big four accounting firms are trying to water down plans by the US regulator to hold their staff responsible for violations of securities laws. Read More

Bernard J. Ebbers, the founder and former chief executive of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for his role in the record $11 billion accounting fraud that brought down the telecommunications company in 2002. Read More

The American International Group has hired Arthur Levitt, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as a consultant to the board in an effort to quell dissent from institutional investors. Read More

Federal prosecutors aren't done with HealthSouth Corp., despite the acquittal of ousted CEO Richard Scrushy in a $2.7 billion earnings overstatement. Read More

Bernard J. Ebbers, the founder and former chief executive of World Com who was found guilty of fraud by a New York jury in March, agreed yesterday to surrender nearly all of his personal fortune - about $40 million - to investors who lost billions when the company spiraled into bankruptcy almost three years ago. Read More

A Milan judge sentenced 10 former Parmalat executives and a lawyer to jail on Tuesday in the first guilty ruling over the 14-billion-euro (9.3-billion-pound) collapse of Italy's biggest listed food group. Read More

J. P. Morgan Chase announced that it had agreed to pay $2.2 billion to Enron investors who accused the bank of participating in the accounting scandal that led to Enron's collapse. Read More

Thanks to the IMF and the World Bank, chicken and other local agriculture staples in Ghana are being replaced by subsidized foreign imports. Read More

Wachovia Corporation has apologized for its ties to slavery after disclosing that two of its historical predecessors owned slaves and accepted them as payment. Read More