Tag: Region Americas

On January 4, 2023, the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) announced the conclusion of two inquiries into the data processing practices of Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) with respect to the company’s Instagram and Facebook platforms. As a result of the investigations, the DPC fined Meta a combined €390 million for breaches of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and,…

Mun Chol Myong (Mun), 55, a national of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to time served of 45 months’ imprisonment for multiple money laundering offenses.

Medical device manufacturer DePuy Synthes, Inc. (DePuy), a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has agreed to pay $9.75 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks to an orthopedic surgeon based in Massachusetts to induce his use of DePuy products.

Two businessmen, Vladislov Ospiov, 51, a dual Russian and Swiss national, and Richard Masters, 52, a United Kingdom national, are charged in separate indictments unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with facilitating a sanctions evasion and money laundering scheme in relation to the ownership and operation of the Motor Yacht (M/Y) Tango (International Maritime Organization number 1010703), a $90 million, 255-foot luxury yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

A federal judge has ordered Boeing Co to be arraigned on a felony charge stemming from crashes of two 737 Max jets, a ruling that threatens to unravel an agreement Boeing negotiated to avoid prosecution. The ruling by a judge in Texas came after relatives of some of the victims said the government violated their rights by reaching a settlement…

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid by NSO Group to block a WhatsApp lawsuit accusing the Israeli tech firm of allowing mass cyberespionage of journalists and human rights activists. The Supreme Court denied NSO’s plea for legal immunity and ruled that the case, which targets the company’s Pegasus software, can continue in a California federal court, a court…

Brazil’s Supreme Court has agreed to investigate whether former president Jair Bolsonaro incited the far-right mob that ransacked the country’s Congress, top court and presidential offices, a swift escalation in the probe that shows the ex-leader could face legal consequences for an extremist movement he helped build. Justice Alexandre de Moraes granted a request from the prosecutor general’s office to…

A New York judge on Friday fined Donald Trump’s family business the maximum penalty possible of $1.6 million for committing tax fraud. The sum, paltry to the billionaire real estate developer’s amassed fortune, is nevertheless symbolically significant as the ex-president eyes the White House again amid a host of legal woes. The Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp., entities of…

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with a labor dispute that could narrow federal protections for unions by making it easier for employers to sue over strikes that result in damage to company property. The justices heard oral arguments in an appeal by a concrete business in Washington state called Glacier Northwest Inc of a lower court’s ruling in…

  U.S. Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, January 4, 2022 Pennsylvania-based medical device distributor Jet Medical Inc. (Jet) agreed to pay $200,000 to resolve criminal allegations relating to a migraine headache treatment, and Jet and two related companies agreed to pay another $545,000 in a civil settlement involving the same device. In a criminal information filed today in the…

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…

Four California agricultural companies and their owner have agreed to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) by knowingly submitting false information in support of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications. Mendota Land Co., Sweetwood Farm Co. LLC, Sweetwood Farm Inc., Seasholtz Co. LLC, and their owner…

A Romanian national was sentenced today to 89 months in prison for his role in a transnational, multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud American victims. He is the 24th member of the organized criminal group to be sentenced, of the 28 who were charged. Ionut-Razvan Sandu, 35, of Romania, pleaded guilty in April 2022 to conspiracy to commit a Racketeer Influenced and…

President Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally, his boldest move yet to confront the arrivals of migrants that have spiraled since he took office two years ago. The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which…

The House Jan 6 committee is shutting down, having completed a whirlwind 18-month investigation of the 2021 Capitol insurrection and sent its work to the Justice Department along with a recommendation for prosecuting former President Donald Trump. The committee’s time officially ends Tuesday when the new Republican-led House is sworn in. With many of the committee’s staff already departed, remaining…

  U.S. Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, December 20, 2022 A federal grand jury in the District of Maryland returned an indictment that was unsealed today charging two men for their roles in schemes to defraud investors in CytoDyn Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company (OTCQB: CYDY) based in Vancouver, Washington. According to court documents, Nader Pourhassan, 59,…