Court documents have revealed the names of City traders who are being investigated over allegations that they attempted to rig international interest rates during the financial crisis.  Legal papers filed in Canada demanding more information allege that executives at six big banks exchanged information to attempt to influence the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the key interest rate at which banks lend to one another.

Facebook could avoid paying corporation tax in America for up to a decade thanks to the huge windfalls staff will bank from the company’s $100 billion (£63 billion) stock market float. The social networking giant will receive several billion dollars in tax credits when Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, and other executives cash in share options after the group goes public.

The North Face, the clothing brand known for its padded, down-filled winter anoraks, has been stuffing them with feathers plucked from geese force-fed to make foie gras paté.  This weekend The North Face, which is based in California, admitted it was using the down when presented with evidence of where it had been sourced.  The admission by The North Face appears to contradict previous claims by the company in publicity material and in responses to customers’ questions that products are sourced ethically and sustainably.

Four years after rotten mortgages helped trigger a global financial crisis, Sherry Hunt said her Citigroup Inc. quality-control team was still finding flaws in new loans that included altered tax forms, straw buyers and borrowers who listed fictitious employers. Instead of reporting the defects to the Federal Housing Administration, the bank saddled the agency with losses by falsely declaring the loans fit for its federal insurance program, according to a complaint filed yesterday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. Citigroup agreed to pay $158.3 million to settle the claims, and admitted that it certified loans for FHA backing that didn’t qualify.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has insisted that the company is committed to improving conditions for workers in its supply chain and eradicating underage labour. Speaking at a Goldman Sachs technology conference, the transcript of which has been put online by Macrumors, the head of the world's most valuable company tackled the topic of conditions in Apple's supply chain in China and other countries, where the Fair Labor Organisation (FLA) has begun inspecting conditions in the factories carrying out final assembly of Apple products.

The Scotland Yard investigation into alleged illegal payments by Sun journalists to police and other public officials is looking into claims that some individuals received more than £10,000 a year and were "effectively on retainer". News Corporation's controversial internal unit passing information about alleged illegal practices by News International journalists to the Metropolitan police believes it has uncovered evidence of "serious suspected criminality over a sustained period" by some public officials supplying information to the Sun.

The Serious Fraud Office has opened a formal investigation into an Auckland gold and precious metals trading company whose clients claim to have lost their funds. Meanwhile, Grace Holdings, trading as BullionBuyer.co.nz, has been placed in liquidation as investors continue to search for answers. Last week NBR reported the Fraser family of Christchurch said they had had been told the $350,000 they had invested with Bullion Buyer was gone.

Former high-flying real estate agent Marnie Adams has plead guilty to misconduct charges. The Real Estate Agents disciplinary tribunal has ordered her licence be suspended for 6 months and fined her $10,000 plus $5,000 costs.  The charge was in relation to acquiring an interest in a property she had listed without obtaining the consent of her vendor clients or informing them of her interest in the property.

The Akron, Ohio-based company said in its annual report it received an anonymous tip in June 2011 via its whistleblower hotline that Goodyear’s majority-owned joint venture in Kenya may have made improper payments. A month later an employee in Angola reported similar allegations.

The liquidators of failed carpet maker Feltex have launched proceedings against big four accountancy firm Ernst & Young (E&Y). The action relates to Feltex' incorrect December 30, 2005, half-year financial statement prepared by Ernst & Young, the liquidators said.

Suppression orders preventing the naming of former South Canterbury Finance directors Edward Sullivan and Robert White, charged with $1.7 billion of fraud, have lifted. The suppression orders expired in the Timaru District Court this morning. Mr Sullivan and Mr White have been charged by the Serious Fraud Office along with former South Canterbury chief executive Lachie McLeod and company accountants Terrence Hutton and Graeme Brown. The charges relate to the alleged disguise of related-party loans that breached the company’s trust deed and the government guarantee and resulted in $1.58 billion paid out of public funds to depositors and bondholders.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation faces the increased prospect of a full-blown inquiry by US authorities as part of the continuing investigation into alleged bribery of public officials under America's foreign corrupt practices act, after the latest round of arrests of senior journalists at the Sun this weekend. Murdoch flies into London later this week on a scheduled visit at a time of turmoil for Britain's best-selling newspaper, with journalists on the title angry at News Corp's powerful management and standards committee (MSC), whose reconstruction and trawl of the company's email archive produced the evidence that led to the arrests.

Two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers have agreed to pay about $1 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, avoiding a second trial over whether they defrauded investors. As part of the deal with the agency, neither of the former Bear executives, Ralph R. Cioffi and Matthew M. Tannin, will admit any wrongdoing. The agency has been sharply criticized in the courts and in Congress for allowing defendants to settle fraud cases without admitting or denying the charges.

Google paid 3% tax on its overseas earnings last year after passing billions of dollars through an Irish subsidiary. The search giant generated $7.6 billion (£4.8 billion) of profit outside America in 2010, and paid a mere $248m in tax. Its Dublin office is the location for "substantially all the income from foreign operations”, Google revealed in documents filed with the US regulator.

Britain’s only publicly listed accountancy firm has been accused of breaching accounting rules by a former manager who claims that he was dismissed for blowing the whistle. RSM Tenon has been accused of overstating profits in its recovery business through a series of "bad practices”, including prematurely recognising revenues on insolvency cases, according to legal documents seen by The Times. Duncan Swift, the former head of Tenon’s Southampton office, alleges that he was fired from his £230,000-a-year post in April last year after bringing the alleged bad practices to the attention of the company’s board.

The chief executive of Rio Tinto has waived his bonus of up to £2 million after the London-based mining giant wrote off $9 billion on the aluminium business acquired just before the credit crunch. Tom Albanese said it was the "right thing to do” because the $44 billion debt-laden deal to buy the Canadian aluminium business Alcan in 2007 had happened "on my watch”.

The Serious Fraud Office will advise securities regulator the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) whether it needs to get involved in the case of an Auckland bullion trader which has allegedly lost clients' money. The SFO is looking into how funds invested into leveraged options in gold allegedly disappeared, after a Christchurch family said it had lost an inheritance. The matter came to the SFO's attention yesterday when it received two complaints about Auckland precious metals trader Bullion Buyer.

Pension experts were appalled last night when it was disclosed that a company pension fund had been effectively hijacked by its trustees, who sold its conventional assets, geared up the proceeds with bank debt and bet almost the whole lot on speculative property developments. At the same time, they siphoned off more than £1.1 million in salaries, bonuses and fees from the fund created from contributions of former employees of Hugh Mackay’s, a now defunct carpetmaking firm in Durham. At one point the fund had liabilities of £43 million and assets of £800,361.

Director base pay last year rose more than five times the rate of the average worker but according to a survey boardrooms are showing restraint in light of an uncertain economic environment and public sensitivity. The survey by Moyle Remuneration Consulting found that for those who got a rise the median increase in base fees last year was 11.1 per cent for non-executive directors, which between 2004 and 2009 consistently ran between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. The median increase for chairmen was 12 per cent.

George Osborne says the government is determined to fight an anti-business culture as ministers seek to fend off criticism from high-profile City figures of their handling of bonuses at Royal Bank of Scotland and Network Rail. Speaking to the Federation of Small Businesses on Tuesday night, the chancellor said it was up to people who "believed in the free market" to fight against rewards for failure in the financial system. He added: "There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain – and we have to stop them. At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many."

Allen Stanford used fake accounting to prop up his offshore bank in its waning days as withdrawal requests from investors poured in, Stanford's former top deputy has said. Faced with a worrying number of withdrawals in 2008, Stanford came up with a plan to make a $600m (£380m) capital infusion into the bank, said James Davis, Stanford's former chief financial officer and the US government's top witness.

One of the seven men accused of defrauding Dunedin-based vehicle finance company MTF has been sentenced to 100 hours' community service. Steward Travis Saunders pleaded guilty to one charge of illegally obtaining funds for personal gain and was sentenced in the Auckland District Court last week.

New Zealand businesses have the most all-male boards out of the Asia Pacific region, according to a new survey. The latest research from executive recruiter Korn/Ferry shows that 65 per cent of all company boards in New Zealand are male-only, more than in India, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. It is more than double the figure of male-dominated boards in Australia, where 29 per cent of companies have boards made up of men only.

Three more immigrants have come forward reporting mistreatment by an Auckland liquor store owner, after accusations from a group of former employees last week who said they were treated like slaves. Employment specialist Max Whitehead is representing eight of the immigrant workers who claim they were badly paid, not allowed breaks to eat and were sexually and verbally harassed. The men claim they are owed thousands by their employer, who they say falsified their pay slips.

More than £50m of World Food Programme aid to feed the starving has ended up in the hands of a London-listed commodities trader run by billionaires, despite a pledge by the United Nations agency to buy food from "very poor farmers". Glencore International, which buys up supplies from farmers and sells them on at a profit, was the biggest single supplier of wheat to the WFP over the last eight months, the Guardian can reveal.

New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote. It challenged apartheid in South Africa. It prides itself on environmentalism, and carefully promotes it's clean, green image to the world. This country marches at the forefront of the changing moral zeitgeist - or so we would like to believe. But those noble principles seem to fly out the window when it comes down to ethically investing our money.

Ministers have heaped pressure on Network Rail to reject a £20 million bonus package for six senior executives in the latest row over excessive rewards for state employees. Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, will take the unprecedented step of attending the company’s annual general meeting this week to oppose the plans, which include a £340,000 bonus for Sir David Higgins, the chief executive.

Britain’s biggest companies will miss a deadline to have a quarter of their boardroom positions filled by women unless more is done to move talented female executives up the corporate ladder, recruiters have warned. As things stand, the target of having 25 per cent of FTSE 100 directorships held by women will be met two years late, in 2017, the search firm Norman Broadbent said.

Dealers feared being fined by Toyota if they carried out ‘cosmetic repairs’ that did not affect safety. Insight reports.

Facebook has been funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars through its Irish operation in an apparent effort to reduce its tax bill. The social networking site moved 15% of its global revenues through Dublin in 2010, according to the accounts for an Irish subsidiary. The accounting manoeuvre allows Facebook to exploit Ireland’s 12.5% corporation tax rate, against 35% in America. Companies with Irish headquarters can often avoid paying taxes on profits generated outside the Republic.

A reader was recently invited to lunch in the private dining rooms at UBS in London. On the table in front of him was a menu listing what he was about to eat. Nothing odd about that, but then he flipped the card over and found a peculiar declaration printed on the back.It is rather long, but I’m quoting it in full as it is the most extreme example I’ve ever seen of a company tripping up as it tries to prove how upstanding it is: "At UBS we promote a corporate culture that adheres to the highest ethical standards across all areas of our business. Our commitment to excellence in all we do, combined with a desire to understand and fulfil our clients’ requirements translates into our client dining experience. That is why, where possible, our menus are crafted from the finest seasonal produce which is ethically sourced, organic and unsurpassed in quality and value. Just like our business.” This is an object lesson in how not to do it. For a start, no organisation should ever announce in public that it is ethical.

A dozen big international banks are being investigated over suspicions that they colluded to manipulate the rates used in trillions of dollars worth of derivatives trades. The Swiss Competition Commission said it had received information that the banks, which include HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, might have unlawfully manipulated the London interbank offered rate (Libor).

Allegations of widespread fraud and "industrial-scale perjury” at the collapsed motor consultancy Autofocus have prompted a second car hire company to take action to recover possible losses. Helphire, a Bath-based provider of replacement hire cars for accident and crash victims, is estimated to have lost tens of millions of pounds as a result of alleged systematic deception by Autofocus and its staff.

The high street book store Waterstones has pulled out of a government scheme that employed unpaid jobseekers in its stores after a Guardian investigation uncovered the practice at one of its outlets. More than a dozen other high street chains have been taking on unemployed workers for weeks without pay as part of the government's Work Experience scheme and others like it. In a case lodged in the high court, the government has defended itself against claims that the unpaid work experience schemes are contrary to Human Rights Act legislation on forced labour.

Zespri has appointed former judge and mediator Sir Peter Trapski to investigate claims a board member is associated with the "illegal" grafting of a new gold kiwifruit variety. The disease-devastated export industry is pinning its recovery hopes on the new fruit. Chairman John Loughlin said the allegation concerns deputy chairman Peter McBride, whose brother Murray is alleged to have grafted the Zespri-licenced new G3 gold variety without a licence on a large orchard in the Psa-hit Bay of Plenty.

Workers in Cambodia will hold a "people's tribunal" next week to investigate pay and conditions at factories working for fashion brands including H&M and Gap. An international panel of judges will hear evidence from workers, factories and multinational brands including Puma and Adidas. H&M said it would not attend but would supply information about how it was addressing wages at its suppliers' factories in the country.

A Sydney printing company that dismissed a clerical worker because her pregnancy had "caused a lot of inconvenience" has been found guilty of grossly breaching its obligations and fined more than A$20,000 ($26,000). When Jiongqui Ye, 36, told her boss at the Wongtas printing company she was pregnant, she was told that she might not be able to return to her position and a replacement would be hired for her to train.

A transaction worth more than $100 million between Bridgecorp and a group allegedly acting as its "piggybank" did not have proper approval, lacked supporting documents and was at odds with the failed finance company's own rules, a new witness has told the High Court. The trial of three former Bridgecorp directors - Rod Petricevic, Rob Roest and Peter Steigrad - continued in Auckland yesterday, with the finance company's credit risk manager Wayne Hawkes giving testimony.

The directors of Lombard Finance & Investments acted with honesty and integrity, using the best information they had available to them, according to the defence counsel. Counsel for Doug Graham and Lawrence Bryant, Paul Davison QC, told the High Court in Wellington his clients acted honestly and with integrity while directors of the failed lender, and acted on the best advice available to them when signing off on offer documents.

Christmas hamper company Chrisco Hampers has been fined $175,000 for overcharging customers on hamper cancellation fees. In some cases, Chrisco was charging customers as much as $800 for cancelling their Christmas hamper orders, an investigation by the Commerce Commission found. In the Manukau District Court today, Chrisco plead guilty to 10 charges under the Fair Trading Act for by misleading customers about terms of cancellation and fees.

Sir Douglas Graham failed in his role as chairman of Lombard Finance & Investments by not taking a more active role in getting to know the property development business as the lender ultimately failed, the Crown prosecutor says. Graham let Lombard Finance's management deal with an increasingly problematic loan book, and didn't lead greater board scrutiny of the lender's practices, prosecutor Colin Carruthers told the High Court in Wellington in his closing argument.

Russia’s president signed into law a ban on bribing foreign officials, marking a major step in the country’s efforts to stamp out corruption. President Dmitry Medvedev announced the signature on Wednesday of the accession of Russia into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s anti-bribery convention, which enjoins it with 34 member countries that include some of the world’s biggest economies, including the U.S., Japan and others.