Rio Tinto's leaked Guinea emails prompts rival to take legal action

Rio Tinto's Guinean payment scandal has deepened, with bitter rival Beny Steinmetz (BSG) threatening to sue for billions of dollars in damages after alleging the leaked emails at the centre of the scandal show Rio had a hand in stripping his company of valuable iron ore tenements in the African nation.

BSG alleges that "facilitation fees/bribes" paid by Rio to its controversial political adviser in Guinea, Francois de Combret, demonstrated that Rio "induced and or procured" the Government of Guinea to breach its agreements with BSG over Simandou. read more »

Companies That Defrauded the Government Fined Billions During Obama Presidency

Total of $31.3 billion surpasses amount collected under the prior three administrations combined

The Justice Department has collected $31.3 billion during the Obama administration from companies that defrauded the government, more than the amount collected under the prior three administrations combined, according to data released Wednesday.

The department said it had collected $53 billion from such cases since 1986, driven in large part by whistleblowers who uncovered overcharges to federal health programs. Fifty-nine percent of that money came from settlements and judgments since Fiscal Year 2009, the agency said.

That number was boosted by several major health care settlements, including billions in penalties levied on GlaxoSmithKline LLC, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer Inc. for marketing drugs for unapproved uses and for overbilling federal health programs, including Medicare. read more »

Atlanta pays feds $1.8 million for jobs program; contractor prosecuted

A former Atlanta contractor faces possible prison time and the city must pay $1.86 million for a jobs program that an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found gave grants to businesses that hired phantom workers and conducted token or non-existent training.

The city admits no liability as part of the settlement reached with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor over federal subsidies to employers that provided on-the-job training after the Great Recession. A May 2014 AJC investigation revealed that the Atlanta Workforce Development Agency recklessly awarded the grant money to city insiders for so-called participants — many who did not know they were part of a program at all.

The Justice Department’s False Claims Act investigation found that the city workforce agency knowingly paid out job training funds while failing to provide required services. Investigators think it subsidized employees who were ineligible, did not receive training, or received inadequate training, the settlement agreement states. It also did not assess clients to determine what help they needed. read more »

Standard Bank Seeks to Stop Zuma Interfering in Gupta Matter

Standard Bank Group Ltd. asked South Africa’s High Court to prevent President Jacob Zuma and his ministers from intervening in its decision to close accounts of companies associated with the Gupta family, who are friends of the leader and in business with one of his sons.

Having conducted a due diligence on Gupta companies, Standard Bank said that continuing a relationship would increase its risk of contravening laws including the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, the U.S.’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K.’s Bribery Act. When asked about allegations in the media, information from representatives for the Guptas was found to be “insufficient, unconvincing and in one instance demonstrably dishonest,” Standard Bank said. read more »

$1.2 Million in a Penalty and Restitution for Prearranged Trading Fraud

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced that on December 9, 2016, the Honorable Sara L. Ellis of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an Opinion and Order finding that Defendant Yumin Li stole in excess of $300,000 from Li’s former employer by trading the employer’s account noncompetitively against an account belonging to co-Defendant Kering Capital Ltd. a British Virgin Islands company formed by Li’s mother. read more »

States Sue Generic Drug Companies Over Price-Fixing Allegations

State attorneys accuse generic drugmakers including Mylan, Teva of manipulating prices on two medicines

Twenty state attorneys general sued a group of generic drug companies Thursday, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices on an antibiotic and a diabetes medication.

The suit comes a day after price-fixing charges against former executives at one of the drugmakers were unsealed in a Justice Department antitrust probe.

The attorneys general, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Connecticut’s George Jepsen, alleged in a suit filed in Connecticut federal court that Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Aurobindo Pharma USA Inc.; Citron Pharma LLC; Mayne Pharma Inc.; Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. conspired to manipulate prices for doxycycline hyclate, an antibiotic, and glyburide, used in the treatment of diabetes. read more »

Brazil's Braskem to pay 3.1 bln reais in leniency deal for corruption case

Brazil's Braskem SA , the largest petrochemical producer in Latin America, signed a leniency deal on Wednesday with Brazilian prosecutors leading a sweeping corruption probe into political kickbacks at state-run oil company Petrobras, the company said in a securities filing.

The company agreed to pay 3.1 billion reais ($920 million) in fines to Brazilian authorities. Around half will be paid in cash immediately, while the rest will be paid in six years beginning in 2018. Braskem did not elaborate on previously disclosed negotiations with U.S. authorities. read more »

With His Family’s Fortune at Stake, President Kabila Digs In

Joseph Kabila and his relatives have built a network of businesses that reaches into every corner of Congo’s economy. Is that why he won’t step down?

While Congolese law doesn’t prohibit politicians or their families from having business interests, the scope of that empire has only recently become visible, in publicly available corporate and government records that Congolese regulators have computerized and made searchable in just the past few years. Bloomberg News, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, traced the Kabilas’ interests by amassing an archive of hundreds of thousands of pages of corporate documents that shows his wife, two children and eight of his siblings control more than 120 permits to dig gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and other minerals. read more »