Category: Corruption

There are continued warnings that the US has been without a chemical security programme since late July, leaving more than 3000 high-risk chemical facilities in the country vulnerable to terrorist, cyber- and physical attacks. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) programme, which was authorised 17 years ago and is managed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is charged with regulating high-risk chemical facilities to ensure these sites are not weaponised by terrorists. It expired on 27 July and…

HAGUE: A group of human rights organisations took the Dutch government to court on Monday, arguing its supply of parts for F-35 fighters contributes to violations of international law in Gaza. The case concerns US-owned F-35 parts stored at a warehouse in the Netherlands and then shipped to several partners, including Israel, via existing export agreements. Oxfam Novib, one of the groups filing suit, said the export “made the Netherlands complicit in violations of the laws of war and the…

Note from Corruption Ledger Spotify is a publicly traded company headquartered in Luxembourg. Swedish founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon started Spotify as a small start-up in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006.  Job cuts don’t just affect those who are laid off. It creates a culture of fear for remaining employees, who must work additional hours and maneuver to adapt to new demands, the reorganization of departments, and new or altered functions assigned to them. Expectations are often unrealistic, which also…

An Abu Dhabi state-backed vehicle has moved closer to taking full control of The Daily Telegraph just hours after the launch of a regulatory probe that prevents it from removing key journalists from their posts. Sky News has learnt that RedBird IMI has given the newspaper’s board and the government notice of its intention to activate a call option that will convert loans secured against the Telegraph titles and Spectator magazine into shares. The move was communicated to key stakeholders…

A statistician has come forward with disturbing information that, if correct, will promote doubt on the safety of mRNA vaccination for decades into the future. The whistleblower was involved with building and implementing the New Zealand government database vaccine payment system, a ‘pay per dose system’ that would remit payments to vaccination providers. In an interview with New Zealand journalist and lawyer Liz Gunn, and using a false name of Winston Smith, the statistician states that science is all about…

The government is to prohibit the removal or transfer of key Daily Telegraph journalists during a public interest probe into the newspaper’s prospective takeover by a state-backed Abu Dhabi investor. Sky News has learnt that Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, is preparing to make an interim enforcement order (IEO) that will impose a set of restrictions on the Daily and Sunday Telegraph’s current owners. City sources said the IEO – which has been notified to the Barclay family – was…

Mercer Financial Advice has been ordered by the Federal Court to pay a $12 million penalty for breaching fee disclosure obligations and for wrongly charging fees to customers, ASIC has reported. “This is a significant penalty for a financial advice provider,” said Sarah Court (pictured above), ASIC deputy chair. “Mercer failed in its obligation to provide fee disclosure statements to clients, provided misleading information in the disclosure statements it did provide, and charged its clients fees for services it was…

WASHINGTON: US inspectors announced fines against China-based firms Thursday, as part of a broader effort to hold US-listed Chinese companies up to American auditing standards amid simmering geopolitical tensions. These included PwC affiliates in Hong Kong and China, alongside a Chinese audit company. The $7.9 million in penalties unveiled by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) represent some of the highest imposed on any firm globally, it said. They mark the first time it “has been able to bring enforcement action…

WASHINGTON: The US on Wednesday said it imposed a new round of sanctions on a group of 20 people and firms allegedly involved in a financial facilitation network for the benefit of the Iranian military. The Treasury Department sanctions impact firms and people spanning Hong Kong to the United Arab Emirates. Included in the sanctions package are employees, brokers and purchasers from Iranian firm Sepehr Energy, which is also subject to sanctions. The US alleges that Sepehr acts as a…

At the peak of the online shopping season, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify filed a new lawsuit to take a stand against DMCA abuse. The company filed a complaint at a Florida federal court, accusing an Orlando resident of filing dozens of false takedown notices, allegedly to advance their own commercial interests. Signed into law a quarter century ago, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) aimed to equip copyright holders with new tools to protect their works online. A key element…

  As China’s embattled shadow banking giant Zhongzhi Enterprise Group faces a criminal probe, lawyers and analysts are assessing the damage to investors. One estimate puts that at about US$56 billion (S$74.9 billion). More than three quarters of investor cash would be lost, with just 100 billion yuan (S$18.7 billion) being recovered from debt of as much as 460 billion yuan, according to one scenario outlined by Mr Ying Yue, a lawyer at Leaqual Law Firm in Shanghai. He expects…

China said a surge in mycoplasma-caused pneumonia in children shows signs of ebbing, but warned that other respiratory illnesses are likely to hit the broader population hard during the mainland’s first winter after Covid restrictions. Health authorities in Beijing say flu, adenovirus and respiratory syncytial virus have surpassed mycoplasma as the most frequently detected pathogens among patients at the city’s top pediatric medical centers.Nearby Tianjin and financial hub Shanghai have also seen their mycoplasma positivity rates trending down in recent…

Healthcare SaaS provider Welltok is warning that a data breach exposed the personal data of nearly 8.5 million patients in the U.S. after a file transfer program used by the company was hacked in a data theft attack. Welltok works with health service providers across the U.S., maintaining online wellness programs, holding databases with personal patient data, generating predictive analytics, and supporting healthcare needs like medication adherence and pandemic response. Earlier this year, the Clop ransomware gang exploited a zero-day vulnerability in…

Beijing has defended its prosecution of two Canadians for espionage, after The Globe and Mail reported that Michael Spavor blames intelligence work done by Michael Kovrig for their nearly three-year-long detention. Mr. Spavor is seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from Ottawa, two sources told The Globe, alleging he was arrested in China in late 2018 because he unwittingly provided intelligence on North Korea to Mr. Kovrig, which was later shared with Canada and allied spy services. In a statement Sunday, China’s…

An Ontario justice has thrown out a proposed $200-million class action lawsuit against legal software provider Dye & Durham Ltd. DND-T over price hikes and broken promises by the Toronto software company. Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan last month dismissed the action brought by real estate law firms and D&D clients Burford Law Professional Corp. and Tais Davis. D&D spokesman Wojtek Dabrowski said in an e-mail: “We are pleased with this outcome and glad to put this meritless lawsuit…

With Russian tanks and troops descending on Ukraine in early 2022, Cyprus became a hotbed of financial activity. The island country has long been known as an offshore transit point for the fortunes of Russian billionaires, and as sanctions loomed over many of them last year, Cyprus financial services firms fielded a series of urgent demands to transfer funds and shareholdings, newly revealed records show. In one case, documents show that two Russian billionaires, Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, needed…