Bribery, Fraud & Tax Evasion

Executives from three major Spanish construction companies are in the limelight for allegedly contributing to a slush fund for the Partido Popular, the Spanish ruling party: Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas from Barcelona, Obrascón Huarte Lain and Sacyr Vallehermoso from Madrid. The scandal has rocked the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy. Read More

Morgan Stanley, a major U.S. investment bank, was well aware of the problems in the sub-prime mortgage market as far back as 2005, according to documents just released in a New York court under a lawsuit brought by the China Development Industrial Bank from Taiwan. Read More

Range Resources, a Texas company, bullied the federal government into dropping a scientific report on environmental contamination caused by fracking, a new investigation has just revealed. This comes on the heels of two major pro-fracking academic reports that had to be withdrawn in 2012. Read More

Ten major U.S. banks settled charges of illegally kicking people out of their homes for pennies on the dollar, under two agreements with the government. The biggest beneficiary is Bank of America which will win a get-out-of-jail free card for selling fraudulent loans to the government. Read More

Dozens of highly paid international lawyers are pocketing millions of dollars in fees from multinational corporations to sue governments in secretive arbitration tribunals for profits they claim to be owed under international investment treaties, according to a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory and Transnational Institute. Read More

Big corporations bankrolled candidates for the 2012 elections in both the Democratic and Republican parties and bought their votes lock, stock and barrel, contributing over $2 billion out of the $6 billion spent this year. The biggest impact was on a California battle to require labeling of genetically altered products. Read More

Federal prosecutors are suing Bank of America for selling fraudulent loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored mortgage finance companies. The government alleged that the multinational sold over $1 billion in bad mortgages that led to numerous foreclosures. Read More

Starbucks, the Seattle-based international coffee chain, has been accused of tax avoidance in the UK. Between 1998 and 2011 the company has made £3 billion in sales but paid out just £8.6 million in taxes on sales from its 735 stores in the country. Read More

Taiwanese company AU Optronics and its U.S. subsidiary were fined $500 million by a U.S. judge for conspiring to artificially inflate the prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens in a verdict handed down last month. Two former AU Optronics executives were also given three-year prison sentences. Read More

Seven Irish banks are being investigated by the Central Bank of Ireland for selling consumers insurance policies that they did not need. Tens of thousands of Irish consumers could get as much as €3,000 ($3,900) each in refunds. Read More