BP oil spill fund sued for fraud and negligence, The Daily Telegraph
28 February 2011
A $20bn (£12.4bn) fund to compensate victims of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill
has been hit with further damaging accusations - this time in a lawsuit
alleging "negligence and fraud".
HSBC sets pace on pay disclosure as it reports profits doubled in 2010, The Guardian
28 February 2011
HSBC set the pace for disclosure of bankers' pay by revealing that 253 of its staff earn more than £1m as it reported a more than doubling of profits to $19bn (£11.8bn) in 2010. Britain's largest bank provided more information on top pay than any of its rivals as chairman Douglas Flint admitted that 89 staff paid more than £1m were based in the UK.
Oil groups urged to show anti-corruption plans, The Financial Times
28 February 2011
Oil companies are being urged to increase transparency and disclosure through reporting to combat corruption in the industry.
Female quotas would target the wrong women, The Financial Times
27 February 2011
Lucy Kellaway comments on the discussion about gender diversity on the Board:
"The
hot debate should not be about boardroom quotas versus voluntary codes
of conduct. It shouldn’t be about the boardroom at all – or at least
not about the non-executives. What matters are the women on the staff,
and making sure that the good ones get to the top."
A1 Grand Prix race firm faces fraud inquiry, The Daily Telegraph
27 February 2011
The Serious Fraud Office has started looking into companies behind the A1
Grand Prix Series – the collapsed rival to Formula One – whose creditors
still claim to be owed more than £400m.
Government relaxes Bribery Act, The Daily Telegraph
26 February 2011
New guidance on the "adequate procedures" companies will have to
adopt to avoid being prosecuted will make allowances for the use of
so-called "facilitation payments". It will also clarify how the
law will view corporate hospitality and will give companies some protection
against illegal acts committed by joint-venture (JV) partners.
Women win 35% of new non-executive board posts, The Financial Times
25 February 2011
Lord Davies said companies were
likely to face quotas if they did not embrace new voluntary targets to double
the female representation on boards within four years.
David Prosser: A missed opportunity to improve Britain's boardrooms overnight, The Independent
25 February 2011
The sigh of relief from the boardrooms was
audible. Lord Davies' investigation into why there are so few women on
the boards of Britain's biggest companies stopped short of recommending
the introduction of a legal requirement that a minimum proportion of
directors should be female. How
disappointing. Countries such as Norway have shown us how introducing
quotas – in its case a 40 per cent requirement for women on the board –
can drive a dramatic transformation of previously male-dominated
boardrooms. Other companies in Europe are following its example. The
UK, meanwhile, has decided to be much more timid.
3 Banks Warn of Big Penalties in Mortgage Inquiries, The New York Times
25 February 2011
Several big banks warned investors on Friday that they could face
sizable financial penalties as a result of state and federal
investigations into abusive mortgage practices. The disclosures by Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup came after a furor late last year over how foreclosures were being conducted.
Credit Suisse included in US tax evasion probe, The Financial Times
24 February 2011
US prosecutors have expanded their
investigation into offshore tax havens to include Credit Suisse and announced
criminal charges against four bankers.
VW-Porsche deal hit by prosecutor probe, The Financial Times
24 February 2011
Chances of the Porsche-VolksWagon merger have decreased following a probe into two executives at Porsche, amidst claims of market manipulation and breaches of trust.
Murray pleads guilty to theft, The Sydney Morning Herald
23 February 2011
SONRAY chief executive Scott Murray faces up to 10 years' jail after
pleading guilty to stealing almost $2 million from Melbourne developer
the Deague family and making fake account entries worth tens of
millions of dollars.
NZ: Nuplex paying $3m to shareholders over disclosure breach, The New Zealand Herald
23 February 2011
Nuplex Industries will pay $3 million to shareholders as part of a
settlement with the Securities Commission after failing to disclose it
breached a debt covenant in 2008.
Businesses told to smash glass ceiling, The Times
23 February 2011
A clutch of Britain’s most respected companies are among the biggest businesses that have no women directors. A day ahead of a government report that could recommend that a significant proportion of the directors of large listed companies should be women, The Times has found that 18 leading businesses — almost a fifth of those listed on the FTSE 100 — could be forced to co-opt women on to their board. They include Associated British Foods (ABF), run by the patrician Weston family which makes hundreds of millions of pounds a year selling women’s clothes at its Primark chain; Wolseley, Britain’s largest plumbing company, which recently moved to Switzerland for tax purposes; and Autonomy, the UK’s flagship international software developer.
FSA fines Deutsche for 'irresponsible' mortgages, The Independent
23 February 2011
The financial watchdog has slapped a fine on DB Mortgages, the first time a mortgage lender has been censured for "irresponsible lending" and the fourth time a lender has been fined in the past two years.
Apple's reputation suffers in China over 'poisoned' workers, The Independent
23 February 2011
Queues to buy iPads and iPhones stretch around China's expanding network of iStores, but Apple's reputation is coming under severe scrutiny in China after workers at a factory making touch screens on contract for the tech giant urged Apple to address their grievances over a chemical poisoning they said could still harm their health.
Investors warn on Bribery Act dilution, The Financial Times
23 February 2011
Any dilution of the Bribery Act would be "bad"
for Britain's reputation as a centre for investment, according to some of the
world's largest institutional shareholders.
Women still face a glass ceiling, The Guardian
21 February 2011
Most women aspiring to senior management positions believe the glass ceiling to career progression still exists, according to a report by a leading UK management organisation .
US arrests Swiss banker in tax probe, The Financial Times
21 February 2011
A Credit Suisse banker has been
arrested in connection with a long-running US tax evasion investigation and
could be one of several individuals likely to face charges this
week.
Alibaba chiefs go in wake of online frauds, The Financial Times
21 February 2011
The world’s largest online marketplace
for trade between businesses has replaced its chief executive after sales staff are
found to have helped set up bogus online shopfronts.
Time to be upfront about potential backhanders, The Financial Times
21 February 2011
This article discusses the position of SMEs in light of the Bribery Act.
Managers hit back at female board quotas, The Financial Times
20 February 2011
Threats from the government that quotas for female representation will be imposed have led German managers to speak out and criticise the move.
Executive jailed after Torex Retail fraud trial, The Times
19 February 2011
A former Torex Retail executive was sentenced to a year in jail yesterday for conspiring to defraud shareholders in the once-high-flying, AIM-listed software developer, which collapsed in 2007.
How a Whistle-Blower Conquered Countrywide, The New York Times
19 February 2011
What does it take to hold your powerful bosses accountable if they try to bully you out the door?
Documents, e-mails, a former deputy district attorney as your lawyer — and a never-say-die approach. Such was the lesson learned by Michael G. Winston, a former executive at the Countrywide Financial Corporation. Mr. Winston spent three years in a legal battle against Countrywide, the once-mighty mortgage giant, and its current owner, Bank of America,
contending that he was punished and pushed out for not toeing the
company line. On Feb. 4, he won: a jury in California awarded him $3.8
million in damages.
F1 driven into tight spot over allegations, The Financial Times
17 February 2011
A former BayernLB banker is at the centre of allegations of corruption that, if proved, could amount to the biggest uncovered bribe in German corporate history.
SEC escalates probe into Freddie Mac disclosures, The Financial Times
17 February 2011
The Securities and Exchange Commission has escalated its investigation into mortgage financer Freddie Mac’s disclosures to investors.
SFO settles Nigeria bribery case for £7m, The Telegraph
17 February 2011
The Serious Fraud Office has secured a £7m settlement from engineering group M. W. Kellogg in a case relating to the payment of more than £100m in bribes to Nigerian Government officials by its parent company.
Madoff: banks ‘were complicit’ in fraud, The Times
16 February 2011
The disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff has claimed that unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow "complicit” in his massive Ponzi scheme to fleece victims out of billions of dollars.
Bribery Act is back on track, says Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, The Telegraph
15 February 2011
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said legitimate businesses are "frightened" by the Bribery Act but made clear the Government had no intention of "watering down" the rules.
JPMorgan ignored client red flags post-Madoff--suit, Reuters
15 February 2011
A former JPMorgan Chase & Co private banker has filed a new whistleblower complaint against the bank, saying it ignored many red flags about a suspicious client even after the fraud of another client, Bernard Madoff, was exposed.
Apple's child labour issues worsen, The Telegraph
15 February 2011
Apple, the technology giant, has admitted that child labour is a growing problem at the factories which manufacture its computers, iPods and mobile phones.
Cosalt takes £17m hit after alleged fraud, The Telegraph
15 February 2011
Cosalt, the oil services group backed by Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, sank further into trouble after unveiling a £17m hit related to impairments and an alleged fraud at its offshore division.
Gill South: Standing up to bullies - it's too important to be left to the victims, The New Zealand Herald
14 February 2011
Do you think of your company as a safe place to work? Not in terms of physical hazards - rather, are your staff protected from bullying behaviour from colleagues and are there systems ready if an incident occurs? Workplace bullying, say the Australian authors of a new book, Preventing Workplace Bullying*, should be taken equally seriously. Dr Carlo Caponecchia and Dr Anne Wyatt argue that while many see bullying as a conduct or personality issue resolved by intervention at the individual level, bullying is a systemic issue that requires a sustained systemic response because a range of individual, organisational and environmental factors contribute to it.
Revealed: how energy firms spy on environmental activists, The Guardian
14 February 2011
Three large energy companies have been carrying out covert intelligence-gathering operations on environmental activists, the Guardian has revealed.
UK companies to get two years to smash glass ceiling for women, The Telegraph
14 February 2011
Leading British companies are expected to be given a two year breathing space to increase the number of women in boardrooms before tougher measures are considered.
EU banks to get ‘single rulebook’, The Financial Times
14 February 2011
Head of the European Union’s new banking authority has warned that he plans to use the ‘true power’ of a single set of rules to impose more uniform oversight on banks.
Three's company in a boardroom, The Financial Times
14 February 2011
Sir Win Bischoff, Lloyds chairman and one of the founding chairmen of the 30% Club, tells a headhunters event that one female director on a company's board would not suffice.
Margareta Pagano: What are the business ethics of revolution 2.0?, The Independent
13 February 2011
Google backed an employee's role in Egypt's protests, but mobile firms and ISPs simply obeyed government orders to shut down.
SEC charges former IndyMac execs with fraud, The Independent
12 February 2011
Three former senior executives at the collapsed US bank IndyMac, whose collapse in July 2008 was a harbinger of an ever bigger banking crisis to come, were charged last night with securities fraud.
Turn them in: auditors are told that they must inform on their clients, The Times
11 February 2011
Regulators have put the onus firmly on auditors to blow the whistle on their bank clients in rules designed to prevent another banking crisis.
Appeals court gives go-ahead to Blackstone case, The Financial Times
11 February 2011
An appeals court in New York has revived a shareholder lawsuit against Blackstone accusing the group of hiding information about bad investments ahead of its 2007 IPO.
Mabey & Johnson directors made illegal payments to Sadam Hussein's Iraq to gain contract, SFO UK Press Release
10 February 2011
Two former directors of engineering firm Mabey & Johnson Ltd have been found guilty of inflating the contract price for the supply of steel bridges in order to provide kickbacks to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. A company sales executive has already admitted his involvement. The company pleaded guilty to breaching United Nation's sanctions (along with other offences) in September 2009.
Ernst & Young appoints first non-executives, The Financial Times
10 February 2011
The overhaul of the governance of audit firms in the UK has led Ernst & Young to appoint three non-executive directors. The move represents an attempt by the auditing firm to distance itself from the Lehman Bros scandal.
Vince Cable lobbied for delay in Bribery Act, The Telegraph
09 February 2011
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has revealed he held talks with Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke ahead of the Ministry of Justice’s decision to delay the implementation of the Bribery Act.
India arrests first executive in graft scandal, The Financial Times
09 February 2011
Indian agents arrested the vice chairman of Etisalat DB, the Indian joint venture of the United Arab Emirate’s telecoms operator, over corruption allegations linked to a multibillion dollar telecoms scandal that has hit the Manmohan Singh’s government.
Fraudbuster who is trying to put the 'serious' into SFO, The Evening Standard
09 February 2011
An interview with Serious Fraud Office director Richard Alderman.
Four charged in insider trading inquiry, The Financial Times
09 February 2011
The investigation into insider trading on Wall Street has escalated with four hedge fund employees having criminal fraud charges filed against them.
G4S security firm was warned of lethal risk to refused asylum seekers, The Guardian
08 February 2011
G4S, the multinational security company hired by the government to deport refused asylum seekers was warned repeatedly by its own staff that potentially lethal force was being used against deportees, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.
US regulators propose deferral of bank bonuses, The Financial Times
08 February 2011
Proposed reforms by US regulators means bankers will have to wait at least three years to receive half of their bonuses, in an attempt to crack down on excessive Wall Street pay.
Brussels urged to end Big Four dominance, The Financial Times
08 February 2011
Four international accountancy networks have joined forces to argue the need for a regulatory framework to manage the power of the biggest operators in the profession.
Ackermann’s remarks spark debate on equality, The Financial Times
07 February 2011
Remarks by the chief executive of Deutsch Bank have sparked a row after Josef Ackerman said women in Board positions make the Board "more colourful" and "more beautiful".
The Bribery Act is a case of 'right idea, wrong time' for the Government, The Telegraph
07 February 2011
Comment: The Government must stop prevaricating about the Bribery Act. Last week’s announcement that it will revise its guidance to companies about anti-bribery measures will not deal with the fundamental issue.
Employers have a 'duty’ to nudge staff into shape, The Telegraph
07 February 2011
Employers are being asked to take centre stage in the Government’s efforts to "nudge” the population to become more healthy. The Department of Health wants companies to formally promote public health messages around alcohol consumption, drug use, fitness levels and eating habits.
Pakistan cricketers may be extradited to answer ‘no-ball’ corruption claims, The Times
05 February 2011
Three Pakistan cricketers accused of match-fixing face extradition unless they return voluntarily to Britain to face corruption charges after prosecutors decided they had enough evidence to bring them to trial.
Pharmaceutical boss on trial over diabetes drug that ‘killed 2,000’, The Times
05 February 2011
Jacques Servier, the billionaire owner of France’s second-biggest pharmaceutical laboratory, will go on trial next week accused of covering up the side-effects of Mediator, a diabetes drug prescribed to five million patients in France.
Madoff Profits Fueled Mets’ Empire, Lawsuit Says, The New York Times
04 February 2011
A lawsuit brought by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme contends that the owners of the Mets used the profits from their years of investing with Mr. Madoff to enhance their personal fortunes, enrich a number of family trusts and financially fuel their array of businesses — all in the face of repeated warnings that Mr. Madoff’s investment firm might have been a fraud.
Spotlight on hedge funds in SEC probe, The Financial Times
04 February 2011
At least 15 hedge funds improperly
received corporate secrets from company officials, according to securities
regulators investigating alleged insider trading on Wall Street.
Blame for immorality goes beyond the board, The Financial Times
03 February 2011
Paul Betts discusses the issue of corporate morality in the context of recent events in Tunisia and Egypt.
Lloyds drops brokers over suspected fraud, The Financial Times
03 February 2011
The UK’s largest mortgage lender has removed some 900 individuals over the past four years from its ‘approved panel’ of brokers, including 300 in the past year alone.
SAC head reassures investors on probe, The Financial Times
03 February 2011
Steve Cohen, head of the $12bn SAC Capital hedge fund, has assured his investors that they will suffer "no financial impact” as a result of a wide-ranging federal investigation into insider trading.
Chevron sues defendants in Ecuador case, The Financial Times
03 February 2011
Chevron has filed a civil lawsuit against the trial lawyers and consultants heading the long-running Ecuador case against the company, charging them of "leading a fraudulent litigation".
PricewaterhouseCoopers targets women, The Telegraph
03 February 2011
One of Britain's leading accountancy firms, PwC, is to set targets for the number of women it employs as partners in a radical attempt to break the glass ceiling in the corporate world.
Former HSBC chairman faces ‘conflict of interest’ on bank review, The Times
03 February 2011
The impartiality of a key figure on the Cabinet sub-committee that will determine the future shape of British banking was called into question in Parliament yesterday. Labour MP Chuka Umunna told a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee that Trade Minister Lord Green had worked at the bank for 29 years and might not be able to "see things in an unbiased fashion”. He also owned a million HSBC shares, according to the most recent annual report.
JPMorgan risk officer warned on Madoff, The Financial Times
03 February 2011
Trustee’s 114-page complaint unsealed
after originally being filed secretly at bank’s request.
BP faces US investigation into gas market manipulation, The Telegraph
02 February 2011
BP, the oil company struggling to restore its image in the United States following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, may face charges relating to manipulation of the US gas market.
UK Banker jailed for insider trading, The Financial Times
02 February 2011
Case marks the first successful criminal prosecution brought by the FSA against a banker still working in the City.
Bribery law will benefit business, The Financial Times
01 February 2011
Editorial comment on the positive impact the UK Bribery Act will have for business.
New boss aims to put Network Rail on track to ‘trust’, The Times
01 February 2011
A new chief executive starts work at Network Rail today with a pledge to build "trust” in the company and to convince the public that the operator of the railway is open and accountable. David Higgins, previously chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, assumes the position as an independent inquiry investigates allegations of misuse of public funds at the private company that receives £4 billion of taxpayers’ money each year.
Mobile phones: a matter of life and death, The Independent
01 February 2011
Mobile phones have changed the social landscape and they are that rarest of beasts, recession-proof. Introduced in the privileged West more than 25 years ago, they have become fashion accessories, conferring both status and Facebook status updates. And the telecoms gold rush shows little sign of stopping, with some analysts predicting that the smartphone market will increase by 55 per cent this year, which is no mean feat at a time when the developed world, where most are sold, is tightening its belt.However, it is in developing markets where the real economic miracles are taking place. Mobile phone growth here has been phenomenal and continues to grow, with more than half the population now mobile phone subscribers. It is here that the mobile phone transcends its intended functionality to become a tool for education, empowerment, democracy, health and wealth generation. In rural Africa and Asia, owning a mobile can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Are family affairs holding back women's progress?, Management Today
01 February 2011
The biggest barrier to women getting senior jobs is the need to balance work and family responsibilities, according to the female respondents to a new survey.
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