Category: banks

A former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Goldman Sachs) was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme involving Malaysia’s state-owned investment and development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

“Today, Roger Ng was sentenced for his role in a massive and egregious bribery and money laundering scheme involving the bribery of high-level foreign officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates and theft of billions of dollars meant to benefit the Malaysian people,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Justice Department remains firmly committed to holding accountable individuals who engage in corruption, undermine the rule of law, and abuse our financial system to launder their illicit funds.  This sentence sends a strong message to criminals around the world:  if you violate our laws, we will bring you to justice.”

  ASIC has launched court proceedings against two business lending specialists, Green County Pty Ltd and Max Funding Pty Ltd, alleging they issued personal loans without being licensed and without undertaking proper inquiries. ASIC has alleged Green County and Max Funding did not make reasonable inquiries about the purpose of loans, which led to Green County providing personal loans to…

Lynda Bennett, 65, of Maggie Valley, North Carolina, was a primary candidate for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District in 2020. In late December 2019, Bennett borrowed $25,000 from a family member, representing that she needed the money for personal expenses because she had to spend a large amount of her own money on her campaign. The day after depositing the loaned money into a personal account, Bennett then caused $80,000, including the $25,000 in loaned funds, to be transferred to the bank account of Lynda Bennett for Congress (LBC), her authorized federal campaign committee. Under the FECA, Bennett was required to report a loan from a third-party individual as a campaign contribution. Bennett knowingly and willfully violated the FECA by reporting through LBC that the full $80,000 was a loan to her campaign using her own personal funds, rather than disclosing that $25,000 of that amount was a loan from another individual.

  Leading aggregator Finsure Group has warned that the Reserve Bank of Australia is getting closer to the “tipping point” with its increases to official interest rates, noting how the central bank would need to be careful about inflicting further pain on mortgage holders. Finsure CEO Simon Bednar (pictured above) said the RBA needed to be more cautious about lifting…

The number of people at risk of becoming mortgage prisoners in Australia has jumped by 42% since the Reserve Bank started lifting the cash rate, with NSW households struggling the most. This was according to new data from personal finance marketplace and advice company Compare Club. The data  was released ahead of the Reserve Bank’s March cash rate meeting, where…

Royal Park Investments (RPI), the so-called “bad bank” of the former Fortis, has filed a billion-dollar claim against rating agency S&P. De Tijd writes this and appears from media reports in the Cayman Islands, the place where the lawsuit was filed.

According to the report, the alternatives encompass “non-specialized financial messaging services” such as phone, fax, or email. Banks that are not on the EU sanctions list can use these channels to conduct business with European financial institutions if the transactions are also not subject to sanctions, the document states. It specifies payments for imports and exports of non-sanctioned goods as…

On March 2, 2023, the Department of Justice announced several new initiatives that prioritize the investigation and enforcement of economic sanctions evasion, export control violations, and similar economic crimes.  Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced a “surge of resources to address a troubling trend: the intersection of corporate crime and national security.” 

The Justice Department announced today that it filed statements of interest in Espin et al. v. Citibank, N.A. and Padao v. American Express National Bank, two lawsuits currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, to address the right of the nation’s servicemembers to bring and participate in class action litigation under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) instead of being forced into privatized arbitration proceedings on their own.

Finance leaders of the world’s top economies sought on Friday to bridge differences over how to deal with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, as the West stepped up sanctions against Moscow.

On January 24, 2023, the Federal Reserve Board (“FRB”) assessed a second-tier[1] civil penalty of $2.3 million against New York-based Popular Bank (or the “Bank”) for unsafe and unsound practices related to six Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loans.  According to the FRB, the Bank processed and funded these loans despite detecting significant indicia of fraud……

Several banks are now offering super-long-term mortgages in response to soaring interest rates, but experts warned that the offers come with a $300,000 hidden cost. Forty-year mortgages are now being offered by banks, to supposedly help alleviate some of the pressure as surging interest rates force the average Australian to spend an additional $12,000 a year in mortgage repayments. But…

The preservation of plant seeds as a genetic resource is becoming more and more important at a time when many crops are threatened by extinction or lower productive output due to climate change and the destruction of ecosystems through overdevelopment. The shifting of ideal growing zones due to warming across the globe makes the creation of seed banks a cause…

A US jury has ordered Bayer subsidiary Monsanto to pay $857 million (£676 million) to seven people – including former students and parent volunteers at a school in Washington state – who said they were sickened by exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that the company sold. The PBCs were apparently used in fire safety fluid in the school that leaked…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform as a judge set a tentative trial date for October. Bankman-Fried, 30, denied charges accusing him of illegally diverting massive sums of customer money from FTX to make lavish real estate purchases, donate…

A Manhattan federal judge known for swift decisions and a no-nonsense demeanor during three decades of overseeing numerous high-profile cases was assigned Tuesday to Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency case. The case was relegated to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan after the judge originally assigned recused herself because her husband worked for a law firm that had done work related to Bankman-Fried’s collapsed…