Park Geun-hye: South Korean court removes president over scandal

Park loses immunity from prosecution over corruption claims after constitutional judges uphold impeachment vote

Park Geun-hye has become the first democratically elected South Korean president to be forced from office, after the country’s constitutional court upheld a parliamentary vote to impeach her over a corruption and cronyism scandal that could see her face criminal charges.

Why was Park impeached?

Park Geun-hye is the most prominent figure in a wide-ranging corruption and cronyism scandal. She and her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, are accused of conspiring to pressure companies, including Samsung, to donate large sums to two nonprofit foundations Choi set up. Choi is accused of using the money for personal gain, which she denies. Park admitted behaving “naively”, but denies coercing companies.

Park is also accused of giving Choi unlawful access to state affairs and and allowing her to influence policy, including Seoul’s stance on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. read more »

Another Whistleblower Case Tees Up For Supreme Court

A U.S. appeals court this week took a side on an issue that has already split two other federal appellate courts: The question of who counts as a whistleblower under rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act apply to employees who raise concerns internally, not just those who make reports directly to regulators. read more »

Profitable Companies, No Taxes: Here’s How They Did It

Complaining that the United States has one of the world’s highest corporate tax levels, President Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly vowed to shrink it.

Yet if the level is so high, why have so many companies’ income tax bills added up to zero?

That’s what a new analysis of 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies that earned more than $3.8 trillion in profits showed.

Although the top corporate rate is 35 percent, hardly any company actually pays that. The report, by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group in Washington, found that 100 of them — nearly 40 percent — paid no taxes in at least one year between 2008 and 2015. Eighteen, including General Electric, International Paper, Priceline.com and PG&E, incurred a total federal income tax bill of less than zero over the entire eight-year period — meaning they received rebates. The institute used the companies’ own regulatory filings to compute their tax rates. read more » 

Chicago State University to finally pay whistleblower $4.3 million

Chicago State University agreed Thursday to pay a former school attorney $4.3 million, ending a long and expensive landmark whistleblower lawsuit.

The unexpected agreement came after the cash-strapped public university, whose delays had driven up the interest it owed, told a Cook County judge it would immediately pay James Crowley, who said he was fired in 2010 after reporting alleged misconduct by top university officials.

A jury in 2014 found in Crowley's favor and ordered Chicago State to pay him more than $3 million, including $1 million in back pay and $2 million in punitive damages, along with attorney fees. But the school had avoided payment while it challenged the jury verdict. read more »

As Dubai’s Skyline Adds a Trophy, the Architect Calls It Stolen

Dubai is about to gain another landmark. The Dubai Frame, set to open this year, is literally and figuratively a frame imposed on the overwhelming view — two parallel towers linked by an observation deck. It is a marker of how far the city has traveled, drawing the eye from the drab buildings of the old settlement along Dubai Creek to the riotous profusion of neon-draped skyscrapers stretching south to the Persian Gulf. It is a totem of Dubai’s ambitions.

It may also be counterfeit.

The Mexican-born architect whose initial design inspired the structure, Fernando Donis, has accused the Dubai municipality of breaching his copyright in a lawsuit filed in December in United States federal court. Nine years ago, Mr. Donis won an international competition to design the building, besting more than 900 other entrants. Yet he was not included in the project’s execution and was not compensated for his intellectual property, his lawsuit claims.

Dubai’s ruling al-Maktoum family has long pledged reforms aimed at bringing rule of law to a business realm often subject to the self-interested edicts of officials. But the city’s entrenched system leaves outsiders vulnerable to mistreatment — from professionals sketching blueprints to construction workers laying foundations.

In crying foul, Mr. Donis joined other foreign professionals who have described a system in which proximity to power trumps the sanctity of law. read more »

Fed suit against Quicken Loans passes first test

The Justice Department can pursue its controversial fraud case against Detroit-based mortgage lender Quicken Loans, a judge ruled Thursday, but he substantially narrowed the time frame covered by the suit.

In the first major ruling since the case reached a Detroit courtroom, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith denied Quicken’s motion to dismiss, but narrowed by almost half the scope of time for which the Justice Department can pursue the company for what it claims was a fraudulent lending scheme.

In its case, the government claims the company ignored “red flags” in dicey home loans that didn’t meet federal standards. The loans involved inflated appraisals, poor credit risks and borrowers with insufficient incomes, the suit says.

The government has alleged that Quicken had a culture of bending the rules and gave “speed bonuses” to underwriters. The mortgage company failed to disclose the problems with the FHA-insured loans that cost the federal government millions of dollars when they went bad, federal lawyers contend. read more »

SEC Charges Marijuana-Related Company and Executives With Touting Bogus Revenues

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a California-based company and its founder with falsely touting “record” revenue numbers to investors and claiming to be a leader in the marijuana industry while some of its earnings came from sham transactions with a secret affiliate.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Medbox provided marijuana consulting services and claimed to sell vending machines known as “Medbox” devices capable of dispensing marijuana on the basis of biometric identification.  The SEC alleges that Vincent Mehdizadeh created a shell company called New-Age Investment Consulting to carry out illegal stock sales and used the proceeds from those sales to boost Medbox’s revenue.  Medbox allegedly issued press releases headlining the phony revenues as record earnings to legitimize itself as a viable commercial operation when in fact nearly 90 percent of the company’s revenue in the first quarter of 2014 stemmed from sham transactions with New-Age.  Mehdizadeh allegedly acknowledged in a text message that “the only thing we are really good at is public company publicity and stock awareness.  We get an A+ for creating revenue off sheer will but that won’t continue.” read more »

Twin Brothers Sentenced To Federal Prison For Ponzi Scheme

Federal prosecutors say twin 52-year-old brothers from Dallas County have been sentenced to four years each in federal prison and have been ordered to pay nearly $1.9 million in restitution for operating a Ponzi scheme.

Authorities say investors lost more than $2.1 million in the scheme run by Roger Harvey Wagner, of Grand Prairie, and Rodney Lee Wagner, of Cedar Hill.

They both pleaded guilty last July to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Evidence presented in court Wednesday indicated the brothers from February through November 2010 solicited from investors money they thought was being used for foreign currency trading that would give them a fixed rate of return plus their principal. Instead, prosecutors say the money was used to repay earlier investors to keep the scam running. read more »