Money & Politics

Adrian Elcuj Miranda, a judge in Buenos Aires, has ordered the seizure of Chevron's assets in Argentina, to force the company to pay a $19 billion penalty for polluting the Amazon in Ecuador. Read More

Big corporations bankrolled candidates for the 2012 elections in both the Democratic and Republican parties and bought their votes lock, stock and barrel, contributing over $2 billion out of the $6 billion spent this year. The biggest impact was on a California battle to require labeling of genetically altered products. Read More

Federal prosecutors are suing Bank of America for selling fraudulent loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored mortgage finance companies. The government alleged that the multinational sold over $1 billion in bad mortgages that led to numerous foreclosures. Read More

The Obama administration is backing Shell Oil after abruptly changing sides in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that could make it even more difficult for survivors of human rights abuses overseas to sue multinational corporations in federal courts. The case will be heard on October 1. Read More

Seven international banks have been served with subpoenas over the global interest setting scandal. Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS - have been asked to provide relevant "documents and communications" to the New York attorney-general. Read More

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to pay a total of $60.2 million in penalties to U.S. government regulators to settle documented charges of bribery in eight countries: Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Serbia. Read More

BlackRock and Two Sigma Investments - both major hedge funds - have been conducting regular private surveys of brokers for wealthy clients. The practice has raised red flags because of Morgan Stanley's role in the Facebook stock market flotation, as well as insider trading scandals at Goldman Sachs. Read More

Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the global ad agency, was defeated in his attempt to get shareholders to approve his $20 million (£13 million) a year salary. His was at least the 12th in a series of shareholder revolts against excessive compensation this spring. Read More

To understand the pervasive corruption in Greek politics, it is necessary to examine the company that has probably paid the biggest bribes to both major parties: Siemens from Munich, Germany, a company with contracts in practically every ministry from culture to telecommunications. Read More

How Deutsche Bank made its U.S. arm vanish from the records maintained by the Federal Reserve and saved itself from locking up $20 billion in deposits. (Hint: Hire a lobbyist on Capitol Hill) Read More