Category: corporate corruption

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials warned parents to avoid powdered infant formula sold by a Texas dairy producer, because a dangerous bacteria was found in one of the company’s products. The Food and Drug Administration issued the alert Friday on Crecelac Infant Powdered Goat Milk Infant Formula, after a sample collected from a Texas store tested positive for cronobacter, which can cause deadly infections in babies. The same bacteria sparked recalls and shortages of infant formula in 2022 after…

It was the first time a former U.S. president was ever tried or convicted in a criminal case, and was the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial. Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid. At the heart of the charges were reimbursements paid to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment…

BOSTON – Magellan Diagnostics, Inc., a medical device company headquartered in Billerica, Mass., has agreed to resolve criminal charges relating to its concealment of a device malfunction that produced inaccurately low lead test results for potentially tens of thousands of children and other patients.  As part of the criminal resolution, Magellan will plead guilty to violations of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and pay a $21.8 million fine, $10.9 million in forfeiture and a minimum of $9.3 million to compensate patient victims….

PARIS – France won a record €15 billion (S$21.9 billion) in foreign investment pledges on May 13, allowing President Emmanuel Macron to bask in the limelight with global CEOs, and forget about strained public finances and weak polls for a while. The bumper crop of pledges, in sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to pharmaceuticals to energy, stood Mr Macron in good stead as he hosted business leaders for the annual “Choose France” summit at Versailles Palace. The 2024 figure is…

Video. Update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment.

A whistleblower who accused a Boeing supplier of ignoring manufacturing defects on the 737 Max died on Tuesday. The former Spirit AeroSystems employee Josh Dean, 45, died after contracting a sudden illness, according to reports by family members on social media, The Seattle Times reported on Wednesday. Josh’s aunt, Carol Parsons, told the outlet that Dean went to the hospital after he had trouble breathing some two weeks ago. His mother is said to have written on Facebook that he…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia. Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi…

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police said Friday they searched the office of the hard-line incoming leader of an association of doctors and confiscated his mobile phone as he faces accusations that he incited the protracted walkouts by thousands of medical interns and residents. The development could further dim prospects for an early end to the strikes. The office of Lim Hyun-taek, who is to be inaugurated as head of the Korean Medical Association next week, called the…

It’s the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling the police, who made arrests. The group organizing the protests, No Tech For Apartheid, said the company fired 30 workers last week…

A court in Vietnam on Thursday ordered the death penalty for a real estate tycoon found guilty in a financial fraud case totalling more than $12 billion US. Vietnamese state media called it the country’s largest-ever case of financial fraud. The conviction of Truong My Lan came amid a government anti-corruption crackdown by Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Lan started off selling cosmetics in a market stall with her mother in Ho Chi Minh City. When Vietnam liberalized…

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday in favour of a group of elderly Swiss women who had argued that their government’s inadequate efforts to combat climate change put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. The European court’s decision on the case, brought by more than 2,000 women, could have a ripple effect across Europe and beyond, setting a precedent for how some courts deal with the rising tide of climate litigation argued on the basis…

Chinese anti-corruption authorities are investigating a senior executive at one of the country’s top military equipment suppliers, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, in a new sign of turmoil in the country’s defence establishment. The probe into He Wenzhong, deputy general manager of CETC, a company subject to US sanctions, follows a shake-up of the armed forces last year, when the two generals in command of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force were replaced. The force controls China’s land-based nuclear missiles….

A unit of defunct lender Credit Suisse will seek to overturn an order to pay US$743 million (S$1 billion) to a billionaire client over the actions of a notorious rogue banker at Singapore’s top court on April 8. The sum was awarded after a lower court earlier ruled that the bank’s trust had failed to safeguard the assets of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia. It was revised down from an initial US$926 million in a sprawling case…

NEW YORK – An executive at a Swiss holding company did not get prison time for participating in a scheme to help US taxpayers hide more than US$60 million (S$81 million) in assets in a fraudulent arrangement known as the “Singapore Solution”. Daniel Walchli, 56, pleaded guilty in 2023 to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the United States for his role in setting up a structure for American clients of Privatbank Ihag to evade scrutiny by tax authorities….

Chemical manufacturer 3M will begin payments starting in the third quarter to many U.S. public drinking water systems as part of a multi-billion-dollar settlement over contamination with potentially harmful compounds used in firefighting foam and several consumer products, the company said. St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M announced Monday that last year’s lawsuit settlement received final approval from the U.S. District Court in Charleston, South Carolina. The agreement called for payouts through 2036. Depending on what additional contamination is found, the amount…

LONDON – Just as they first ventured to do over a century ago, the world’s largest oil companies are staking claims far from home – this time to swallow, rather than spew, planet-warming industrial emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) storage is emerging as a potential multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron, which are under global pressure to rein in the unfettered burning of fossil fuels. In Asia, which will generate the majority of this century’s carbon emissions,…