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On the eve of the 2002 World Summit Greenwash Academy Awards, carbon kingpins Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco, along with leading purveyors of Frankenfoods, Monsanto, Novartis and Aventis are vying for some of the glittering event's most prestigious awards. Local favorites Eskom and Sasol should not be counted out, however, according to insiders from the Academy.

U.S. companies remain less accountable than European and Asian ones despite recent years' damaging revelations of management chicanery involving finances, labor relations, environmental performance, and consumer protection, a global survey said Friday.

There's one group of people who should be giving thanks daily for the Enron scandal: the partners of KPMG, one of the Final Four accounting firms. That's because the fallout from Enron is what allowed KPMG to extract a favorable settlement from the Justice Department last week. The firm agreed to fork over less than a year's profit in return for not being indicted on a zillion counts of cheating the government by peddling sleazy, dishonest tax shelters for six years.

KPMG, the accounting firm under investigation for selling questionable tax shelters, will pay $456 million and accept an outside monitor of its operations under terms of an agreement with prosecutors that heads off an indictment of the firm, people briefed on the deal said yesterday.

The US authorities are expected to unveil a setlement with KMPG over its past sales of allegedly abusive tax avoidance schemes in order to avoid trial.

When individuals sue major corporations, the odds are stacked against them. One woman's fight against an insurance giant details those odds and what it takes to beat them.

Lurking within the records of most cities and states in America there lies a scandal. A tax scandal. A jobs scandal. A corporate and political scandal.

The former director of accounting at WorldCom, Buford Yates Jr., was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on August 9, 2005 for his role in the large fraud at the company.

Four big scandals have come to light in as many months at big blue chip companies - Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler, Infineon and Commerzbank. In each case, allegations of bribe taking, money-laundering and related crimes have led to the resignation of senior executives.

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.

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.

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.

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

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