As a point of reference, Lahmeyere has received over $15 million in Bank contracts over the past four years. Bank Information Center has a good recap of the story along with a handful of links to additional resources here.

The defendants used the information to file over 365 fraudulent federal tax returns in 27 states, according to U.S. Attorney John Wood.

Some of the money obtained through the conspiracy was wired to bank accounts in Kenya, where at least 12 of the defendants were born or held citizenship, Woods said. The money was then withdrawn from ATM machines within Kenya.

The tax returns were filed online through computers at public coffee shops and restaurants in order to conceal the conspirators’ identities. The filing fees were paid with credit cards opened in identity theft victims’ names.

Ten of the defendants are being held in custody, three are believed to have fled to Kenya and four have yet to be accounted for, prosecutors say.

In a filing with the SEC, Nabors said, “We are reviewing certain transactions with this vendor, which provides freight forwarding and customs clearance services, and intend to cooperate with the Department of Justice inquiry. The ultimate outcome of this review cannot be determined at this time.”

Nabors is the the world’s largest land driller. You can read additional coverage by the Houston Chronicle here.

Steven J. Ott and Roger Michael Young, former executives of the global telecommunications company, pleaded guilty on July 25, 2007, to separate one-count criminal charges of conspiring to violate the FCPA.

Ott served as ITXC’s EVP of Global Sales and Young served as the company’s Managing Director for Africa and the Middle East. In pleading, both defendants admitted to paying over $250,000 in bribes to employees of foreign state-owned and foreign-owned telecommunications carriers in Nigeria, Rwanda, and Senegal to obtain and retain contracts for ITXC between September 1999 and October 2004.

In a related case, a former Regional Manager of ITXC Corporation, Yaw Osei Amoakoof, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for FCPA violations stemming from corrupt payments to foreign officials in order to retain business for ITXC in Africa.

Steph, age 37, is a former executive of a subsidiary of Houston-based Willbros Group Inc. According to the indictment, Steph conspired to make more than $6 million in bribes.

There are four counts in the indictment that accuse Steph of conspiring to bribe the officials while serving as general manager of Wilbros (a publicly-traded company) between 1998 and 2005.

Commentary: Want a throw around a figure that can help scare your employees into compliance with FCPA? Steph faces up to five years in prison for the charge of conspiring to violate the FCPA. He also faces money laundering charges since the money for the bribes was transferred internationally. Furthermore, he faces fines of either $500,000 or 2x times the amount of the “gain.”

Take out the calculator it adds to (tap….tap….tap…) UP TO 60 YEARS IN PRISON AND POTENTIALLY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FINES. Of course, he is not going to get that if convicted (our guess is that he gets less than 3 years) – but all the same, the uncertainty of how significant the penalty could be is enough to make any 37-year-old’s hair turn prematurely gray.

According to Dow Jones, eleven oil and oil service firms received a letter on July 2 from the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section asking them to detail their relationship with Panalpina World Transport Holding Ltd. (PWTN), a Swiss-based shipping and logistics-management company.

Commentary: This should not be entirely surprising to Ethisphere readers – back on June 7th, we reported how Noble Corporation was opening an investigation into the dealings with a customs brokerage in Nigeria (obviously Panalpina). Noble’s announcement was simply coming on the heels of announcements of investigations from Tidewater (which we wrote about back on May 1st) as well as Global Industries Ltd.

This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, the World Bank, UPS, Tyco International, and Rolls-Royce.

BRIBEline (the acronym stands for the “Business Registry for International Bribery and Extortion”) is essentially an online survey that is available in 14 languages. While no names are required or collected, the survey asks participants to respond to ten multiple-choice questions. All information is kept anonymous so that reports cannot be used for legal investigations or prosecutions.

Ultimately, the information gathered through BRIBEline will be collected and publicly reported by TRACE in hopes of highlighting where the worst offenders reside in terms of country, ministry, or sector. This in turn will help companies target their compliance and anti-corruption efforts.

Commentary: We think that this is a fabulous tool that reflects the excellent leadership in anti-corruption demonstrated by TRACE’s leader, Alexandra Wrage. There has been a real dearth of information about where bribes are occurring, with companies limited to examining only their own experience and DOJ prosecution and investigation records.

We strongly encourage companies to get involved with BRIBEline and look forward to some of the interesting trends and information that come as a result.

According to media reports

The Audit Committee of the company said that it decided to launch the investigation after observing the FCPA settlement of competitor, Vetco Gra, as well as other recent press releases by Tidewater, Inc., Noble Corporation and GlobalSantaFe Corp. disclosing that they are conducting internal investigations into similar operations.