Money & Politics

JP Morgan - the Wall Street investment bank - and SAC - a major hedge fund - were hauled up Friday for alleged fraud. JP Morgan was questioned at a U.S. Senate hearing about hiding trading losses while SAC agreed to pay $614 million to settle insider trading charges. Read More

Nearly 70 percent of Swiss voters approved a "fat cat" referendum that would prohibit "golden handshake" bonuses to departing corporate bosses while the European Union approved legislation limiting bankers executive bonuses to a maximum of one year's salary, or twice that amount if a majority of shareholders approve. Read More

SAC Capital is one of the most profitable hedge funds in history with $15 billion in assets averaging 30 percent in annual profits for 20 years running. Today Wall Street is watching nervously as U.S. government lawyers work on a case against billionaire founder Steven Cohen for insider trading. Read More

The medieval alchemists claimed they could turn ordinary metals into gold. Analysts at Standard & Poors (S&P), Wall Street's top ratings agency, claimed that bad loans to poor people were wildly profitably. A U.S. government investigation alleges that S&P financial analysts are no different from the hucksters of yore. Read More

Executives from three major Spanish construction companies are in the limelight for allegedly contributing to a slush fund for the Partido Popular, the Spanish ruling party: Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas from Barcelona, Obrascón Huarte Lain and Sacyr Vallehermoso from Madrid. The scandal has rocked the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy. Read More

Morgan Stanley, a major U.S. investment bank, was well aware of the problems in the sub-prime mortgage market as far back as 2005, according to documents just released in a New York court under a lawsuit brought by the China Development Industrial Bank from Taiwan. Read More

American Insurance Group (AIG), the world's largest insurance company, considered suing the U.S. government over the terms of a massive $182 billion bailout that rescued it from almost certain bankruptcy. Read More

Ten major U.S. banks settled charges of illegally kicking people out of their homes for pennies on the dollar, under two agreements with the government. The biggest beneficiary is Bank of America which will win a get-out-of-jail free card for selling fraudulent loans to the government. Read More

Dozens of highly paid international lawyers are pocketing millions of dollars in fees from multinational corporations to sue governments in secretive arbitration tribunals for profits they claim to be owed under international investment treaties, according to a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory and Transnational Institute. Read More

A clandestine lobbying effort at the European Union (EU) by Swedish Match company to get legislators to lift a ban on a special kind of smokeless tobacco has forced the resignation of a top European bureaucrat and prompted renewed calls to strengthen rules on undue business influence in Brussels. Read More