Bribery, Fraud & Tax Evasion
Ugly scenarios played out repeatedly on the world stage in the past decade as Enron emerged as the dominant force in the energy industry. While Enron built a reputation as a savvy deal maker and charitable giver in the United States, it has long been perceived quite differently abroad.
How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his war-shattered country, and where is it? Investigators are developing a new strategy involving filing civil damage claims against companies, governments and international banks that they contend aided Mr. Taylor in illegal transactions.
Tracing the chain of production of an E. Coli-contaminated hamburger made by Cargill, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.
Schering-Plough Corp. on Tuesday agreed to pay $435 million and plead guilty to conspiracy to settle a federal investigation into marketing of its drugs for unapproved uses and overcharging Medicaid for certain drugs.
There was more than a little of the surreal to President Bush's speech yesterday. The speech, billed as a major policy address on Bush's get-tough-on-corporate-crime agenda, came amidst days of news revelations of President's own questionable behavior as an executive of Harken Energy.
Media corporations give millions, receive billions. The cost for two weeks of ad-driven debate on Kerry's military record cost almost $1 million. Political advertising will bring over $1.5 billion to media corporations this election season. In turn they will invest millions in campaign contributions and lobbying. Meanwhile, substantive political coverage continues to decline.
A Defense Department auditor, appearing before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, testified Tuesday that DynCorp International billed the government $50 million more than the amount specified in a contract to provide dining facilities and living quarters for military personnel in Kuwait.
Halliburton has admitted that it destroyed evidence after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The company has agreed to pay a $200,000 fine, make a donation of $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and accept three years of probation.
A federal court ordered a retrial for Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann and five others on Wednesday over large payments to executives during Vodafone PLC's 2000 takeover of rival mobile phone company Mannesmann AG.
NEC, the Japanese electronics company, Tuesday said that 10 rogue employees placed fake orders worth Y2.2bn ($200m) and accepted kickbacks worth Y500m, which they spent on personal wining and dining.