Category: z-Exclude
Rule 10b5-1 Application and Enforcement
On March 1, 2023, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) demonstrated continued interest in investigating insider trading by company executives who possess material non-public information when they unsealed an indictment and filed a civil complaint, respectively, in the Central District of California. Though a Rule 10b5-1 plan—an investment device…… Continue Reading
The post Rule 10b5-1 Application and Enforcement appeared first on Global Investigations & Compliance Review.
US airlines are sitting out China’s reopening
WASHINGTON – After three years of largely self-imposed isolation because of Covid‑19, China is finally reopening. But US airlines are not lining up to reinstate the once-abundant services between the world’s two largest economies. In pre-pandemic 2019, direct flights between the United States and China by carriers from both countries averaged 340 per week. Today there are a maximum of just two dozen weekly. The biggest three US airlines – American, Delta and United – will keep flying at…
US special counsel faults FBI’s handling of 2016 Trump-Russia probe
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.
US arrests Massachusetts man for acting as Chinese agent
WASHINGTON – A Massachusetts man has been arrested for providing information about Chinese dissidents in the United States to China’s government, the Justice Department said Monday. Litang Liang, 63, of Brighton, was arrested on May 9 on charges of acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) without notifying US authorities, according to the department.
The announcement of Liang’s arrest came on the same day as a court in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou revealed that a 78-year-old US citizen, John Shing-wan Leung, had been sentenced to life in prison for espionage. The Justice Department said Liang, between 2018 and 2022, had passed information about Boston-area residents, dissidents and groups, including “community organisations with pro-Taiwan leanings,” to Chinese government officials.
Apple investigated for ‘planned obsolescence’
“Following a complaint, an investigation was opened in December 2022 into deceptive marketing practices and programmed obsolescence,” the office said in a statement on Monday, adding that the complaint was filed by an activist group called ‘Halte a L’Obsolescence Programmee’ (HOP). The group’s complaint centers around the practice of ‘serialization’, whereby spare parts like microchips or speakers are matched with serial numbers to a specific generation of iPhone. This prevents third-party repairers from using generic parts, and as models are phased out by Apple, so too are the associated spares, forcing customers to shell out for a newer model.
Ransomware gang steals data of 5.8 million PharMerica patients
Pharmacy services provider PharMerica has disclosed a massive data breach impacting over 5.8 million patients, exposing their medical data to hackers.
PharMerica is a pharmacy services provider in 50 U.S. states, operating 180 local and 70,000 backup pharmacies, and serving 3,100 medical facilities nationwide.
According to a data breach notification submitted to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, hackers breached PharMerica’s system on March 12th, 2023, stealing the full names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers (SSNs), medications, and health insurance information of 5,815,591 people.
The firm discovered the intrusion on March 14th, 2023, and its investigation determined on March 21st that client data had been stolen. However, notices of a data breach were sent to impacted individuals only last Friday, May 12th, 2023.
Airline exposes passenger info to others due to a ‘technical error’
airBaltic, Latvia’s flag carrier has acknowledged that a ‘technical error’ exposed reservation details of some of its passengers to other airBaltic passengers. Passengers also reported receiving unexpected emails which addressed them by the name of another customer. The Riga-based airline, incorporated as AS Air Baltic Corporation operates flights to 80 destinations and is 97% government-owned. Although the air carrier says the leak impacts a small percentage of its customers and that no financial or payment data was exposed, the airline has…
China still conducting police activities in Germany: German ministries
BERLIN – The German security authorities believe that China is still conducting police activities on German soil even though Beijing assured Berlin in February that it had ceased to do so, the German foreign and interior ministries said on Monday.
“The security authorities continue to assume that there are two so-called overseas police stations in Germany,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said at a regular press conference.
Berlin called on Beijing in November to shut down extraterritorial police stations in the country.
Mexico dispatches discarded presidential jet to Tajikistan
President López Obrador made the sale of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner one of his campaign promises, calling it a symbol of previous governments’ excesses. But the specially-outfitted plane proved hard to shift and an attempt to raffle it off failed. It was finally sold to the Tajik government for $92m (£73.7m).
The jet took off from California, where it had been in storage, and arrived in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, early on Monday. The plane was originally purchased in 2012 by the president at the time, Felipe Calderón, for $218m (£175m). It was then used by Mr Calderón’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto. Mr López Obrador vowed to never set foot in it. He has been using commercial flights since he took office.
Sudan’s military chief freezes bank accounts of rival paramilitary group amid truce attempts
CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s military chief has ordered the freezing of all bank accounts belonging to a rival paramilitary force. The two sides have battled for weeks across Sudan, pushing the troubled country to the brink of all-out war.
The decree, issued on Sunday by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, will target the official accounts of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudanese bank, as well as the accounts of all companies belonging to the group, the state news agency SUNA reported.
It remains unclear what immediate effect the freezing would have on the RSF and how Burhan’s orders are to be enforced.
The military chief also announced the replacement of the governor of Sudan’s Central Bank, a move likely tied to the freezing decree. Over the past decade, the RSF amassed great wealth through the gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves.
France not ready to send jets to Ukraine – Politico
In an article on Sunday, Politico quoted an anonymous official from Macron’s office as saying that “what Ukraine needs is combat equipment, armored vehicles, tanks, artillery.” In addition, Paris will heed Kiev’s calls to supply more air defense systems, the source stated.
When asked whether France was considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine, the official dismissed the issue as “a bit premature,” stressing that the focus should currently be on land operations and air defense.
Biden is going to Hiroshima at a moment when nuclear tensions are on the rise
Biden will visit the city for the G-7 summit, where he and other world leaders will focus on a range of issues, including Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, climate change, and the global economy.
But Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in Japan’s legislature, has said he hopes the setting of the summit will bring a focus to the danger of nuclear weapons. And in that setting, the leader of the country who carried out the bombing will inevitably play an outsized role in any events commemorating it.
Zelensky plots bold attacks inside Russia, bombing major oil pipeline, leaks show
Iran Press TV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has plotted in private to launch bold attacks inside Russia, according to leaked documents. Zelensky, who till recently was refused long-range weapons to use in attacks against Russia, behind closed doors sketched out plans earlier this year for major military actions such as occupying cities and villages inside Russia, bombing a pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, and using long-range missiles to hit targets on the Russian side of the border. The…
Russia approves agreement on supplying natural gas to China via Far Eastern Route: Tass
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved an inter-governmental agreement to supply natural gas to China through the Far East Route. The move will accelerate energy cooperation between Russia and China, experts stated.
Sino-Russian energy cooperation is strategic, whereas the implementation of the agreement on gas supplies to China via the Far Eastern line is beneficial both to Russia and China, Mishustin said at a government meeting on Thursday, Tass reported.
The cooperation deal was signed on January 31, 2023 and defines the terms of cooperation for the supply of gas from Russia to China via the Far Eastern route, including the cross-border section of the gas pipeline across the Ussuri River near the cities of Dalnerechensk in Russia, and Hulin, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, according to media reports.
Japan’s Military Collusion with NATO under Fire
Pyongyang, May 15 (KCNA) — Kim Sol Hwa, researcher of the Institute for Japan Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, issued the following article titled “What is final aim of Japan’s Military Collusion with NATO” on May 14:
The unprecedented military nexus between Japan and NATO has recently aroused great concern and vigilance of the international community. A typical example is that Japan is planning to open the NATO liaison office in Japan for the first time in Asia…
Philadelphia Inquirer hit by cyberattack causing newspaper’s largest disruption in decades
The Philadelphia Inquirer experienced the most significant disruption to its operations in 27 years due to what the newspaper calls a cyberattack.
The company was working to restore print operations after a cyber incursion that prevented the printing of the newspaper’s Sunday print edition, the Inquirer reported on its website. The news operation’s website was still operational Sunday, although updates were slower than normal, the Inquirer reported.
Inquirer publisher Lisa Hughes said Sunday “we are currently unable to provide an exact time line” for full restoration of the paper’s systems.