Category: corporate corruption

Leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies are generally united in voicing concern about China. The question is how to translate that worry into action. Over the past two years, President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to reframe the relationship with Beijing and build support among like-minded nations for a strong response to what officials in Washington and some other Western democracies say is “economic coercion.” But the G7 also needs to cooperate with China on broader global issues…

Thales, a French multinational defence firm, is now facing a bribery probe from French prosecutors over allegations related to a contract to modernise the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Dassault Mirage 2000 planes. Sanjay Bhandari, who claims to have assisted Thales in winning the $2.5 billion contract in 2011, has made the accusations, with the focus of the investigation on whether the payments made to Bhandari were hidden bribes. Thales has denied any wrongdoing and highlighted that prosecutors have not yet…

LONDON (AP) — Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the German lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein when he was a client, according to lawyers for women who say they were abused by the late financier. A woman only identified as Jane Doe sued the bank in federal district court in New York and sought class-action status to represent other victims of Epstein. The lawsuit asserted that…

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been kicked off a major Australian payments service and banned by big four bank Westpac, with customers suddenly unable to deposit or withdraw funds from the platform. Binance Australia – the local arm of the $6.7 billion crypto exchange Binance – told customers on Thursday afternoon they would no longer be able to deposit funds onto the exchange via PayID, a popular instant payment method. Withdrawal of Australian dollars to bank accounts has also…

BENGALURU – Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay US$75 million (S$100.6 million) to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging the lender facilitated the late Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday, citing lawyers who sued the bank on behalf of alleged victims.

The suit was filed in 2022 in New York by an anonymous woman on behalf of herself and other accusers, alleging Deutsche Bank did business with Epstein for five years knowing he was engaged in sex-trafficking activity, the report said.

Deutsche Bank did not immediately reply to a Reuters’ request for comment. REUTERS

SAN FRANCISCO – Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes must begin serving prison time after a judge denied her latest request to remain free while appealing her fraud conviction. Holmes was sentenced to just over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her Silicon Valley start-up Theranos. She was scheduled to begin serving prison time on April 27, but her lawyers lodged a last-minute appeal on procedural issues after an earlier attempt was denied. US Judge Edward Davila on…

The roughly 30-page report detailed what lawmakers say are various companies and financial records tied to family members of Mr Biden, including his son, Hunter Biden, and daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden.

It contains records of bank transactions, obtained through subpoena, that Republican lawmakers say are linked to Romania and China.

The bank records show the receipt of money from a foreign company connected to Gabriel Popoviciu, who was prosecuted for corruption in Romania, reports the New York Times.

“We believe that the president has been involved in this from the very beginning. Obviously, we’re going to continue to look,” Mr Comer told reporters Wednesday.

The Kentucky lawmaker also acknowledged there had been “a pattern for a long time” of questionable financial dealings by relatives of presidents from both parties.

In October, reports indicated that the FBI believed it had enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes. The Justice Department reportedly ordered the team’s removal, according to the New York Post. An IRS criminal supervisory special agent came forward to Congress in April seeking whistleblower protection to share with lawmakers information that allegedly showed the investigation into potential tax crimes by the younger Biden was being mishandled. Now, the whistleblower’s attorneys claim the team’s removal from the investigation…

SAN FRANCISCO – Wells Fargo & Co agreed to pay US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) to settle a shareholder lawsuit that accused it of making misleading statements about its compliance with United States consent orders, following the 2016 scandal involving the opening of unauthorised customer accounts. The settlement is one of the top six largest securities class-action settlements of the past decade, according to lawyers for the investors, who filed a request on Monday for a Manhattan judge to approve the…

WASHINGTON – The FBI lacked “actual evidence” to investigate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump’s political opponents to fuel the probe, US Special Counsel John Durham concluded in a report released on Monday.

The report marks the end of a four-year probe launched in May 2019 when then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham, a veteran prosecutor, to probe potential missteps by the FBI when it launched its early stage “Crossfire Hurricane” inquiry into potential contacts between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

That Crossfire Hurricane investigation would later be handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in March 2019 concluded there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

In his new 306-page report, Durham concluded that US intelligence and law enforcement did not possess any “actual evidence” of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia prior to launching Crossfire Hurricane.

He also accused the bureau of treating the 2016 Trump probe differently from other politically sensitive investigations, including several involving Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

A former executive fired from TikTok’s parent company ByteDance made a raft of accusations against the tech giant Friday, including that it stole content from competitors like Instagram and Snapchat, and served as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government by “suppressing or promoting content favorable to the country’s interests.”

The allegations were made in a complaint last week by Yintao Yu, the head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. operations from August 2017 to November 2018, as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit filed earlier this month in San Francisco Superior Court. Yu claims he was fired for disclosing “wrongful conduct” he saw at the company.

In the complaint, Yu alleges the Chinese government monitored ByteDance’s work from within its Beijing headquarters and “provided guidance on advancing core communist values.”

Construction workers build along State Road 836 in 2018 in Miami. HB 1191 would compel the Florida Transportation Department to study using phosphogypsum in paving projects. Roads in Florida could soon include phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — under a bill lawmakers have sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Conservation groups are urging DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and put road construction crews at a higher risk of cancer. Here’s…

Content moderators under Sama, Meta’s content review sub-contractor in Africa, earlier today picketed at the company’s headquarters in Kenya demanding April salary, while urging it to observe the court orders that barred it from conducting mass layoffs. The demonstrations came after Sama, in an email, instructed moderators to clear with the company by May 11, a move the employees say is against the existing court orders. The 184 moderators sued Sama for allegedly laying them off unlawfully, after it wound down…

BEIRUT (AP) — A European judicial team questioned Lebanon’s caretaker finance minister on Friday in an investigation related to corruption probes of the country’s Central Bank governor, officials said. The questioning is part of a probe by a delegation from France, Germany, and Luxembourg, now on its third visit to Lebanon to interrogate suspects and witnesses in the case. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is being investigated abroad over several financial crimes and the laundering of some $330 million. During…

A series of investigative reports over the last few months has revealed that migrant children, mostly from Central America, are working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. New York Times investigative journalist Hannah Dreier has interviewed more than 100 migrant children working in violation of child labor laws across 20 states. “I talked to a 12-year-old girl in Alabama who was working overnight stamping auto parts. I talked to a 12-year-old in Florida who came to…