A Thai Member of Parliament (MP) and a newspaper critic face millions of dollars in damages and significant prison time after being sued for libel by Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, according to a story by the Guardian Newspaper. Both were sued for saying that Tesco, known as Tesco Lotus in Thailand, is expanding […]
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This week, the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) issued its first ever bid-rigging fine to six pest control firms. The companies were found guilty of coordinating their bids for six extermination contracts and rotating which firm would offer the lowest. They were caught after email exchanges between senior managers of the firms were […]
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A new case this week proves that the FCPA doesn’t just cover the back offices of large, powerful businesses. Even individuals and small businesses can and will be prosecuted for violations. Gerald Green, a Hollywood producer, and his wife Patricia were arrested for allegedly bribing a Thai official as much as $1.7 million […]
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Jonathan Evans, the head of the UK’s MI5, recently sent a letter out to 300 British business leaders warning them to be wary of a possible Chinese espionage attack. Since then, the UK’s Times has reported that both Rolls-Royce and Shell have already been hit by “sustained spying assaults” from Chinese government-backed hackers. […]
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The major finance and business media missed this, but it’s big all the same. Ethisphere has learned that several days ago a former financial staff member of the Chinese company, LDK Solar Co. Ltd, has sent letters to company management alleging that he was terminated last month as financial controller because […]
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Time Magazine, the magazine publishing arm of Time Warner Inc., was ordered to pay $106 in damages last Monday for defaming former Indonesian dictator Suharto. On August 31, the Supreme Court overturned rulings by the Central District Jakarta and the Jakarta High Court, both of which sided in Time Magazine’s favor.
The article in question, […]
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After thirteen years of serious discussion, China passed its first national anti-monopoly law on Thursday which will take effect August 1, 2008. The new law is intended to encourage “fair competition and further open up the economy.”
Government officials have said that the new rules will not differentiate between foreign or domestic companies. However, China […]
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Australia’s largest supermarket chain, Woolworths, admitted to lying about its claim of environmentally sustainable toilet paper and tissue products. An independent audit of the Indonesian company that supplies pulp to Woolworths, along with ABC Radio’s PM program, found evidence discrediting the company.
The company is still awaiting accredation of its suppliers’ Indonesian operations from an […]
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Zhang Zhijian, a Chinese citizen imprisoned for posting an online story about government corruption, was released and compensated 24,000 yuan after serving ten months in jail. Zhang, who accused former drug safety commissioner Zheng Xiaoyu of being corrupt in his position, was sentenced to six years in prison for defaming the government.
The posting […]
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The Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo has underwritten the creation of an online multi-player computer game called “The Incorruptible Warrior.”
The game went live last week on July 25th and it has already been downloaded over 100,000 times, with hundreds of players engaging online simultaneously.
Why so popular? Because the […]
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Fisher-Price has announced a recall of nearly one million Chinese-made toys over concerns of lead-based paint.
The worldwide recall affects 967,000 Nickelodeon and Sesame Street toys, including such popular items the Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem […]
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A Long Island man pleaded guilty on Wednesday of conspiring to destroy a rival company’s product. Robert A. Schetty, III, 42, a vice president of Technic, Inc., coordinated an attempt to place hydrogen peroxide in a bath of chemicals used by rival company Rohm and Haas, Co. to test their new electroplating solution. […]
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We are filing this one under the category of “Careful Communications” as the Pakistani government is reporting that five people were killed in Kararchi several days ago as a direct consequence of falling billboards in the city which collapsed due to strong winds…
Police confirmed the deaths which were caused when at least twenty billboards […]
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Swiss-based engineering group ABB announced this week that it may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) anti-bribery law after discovering suspect payments made by some employees overseas.
ABB said the probe is uncovering payments of concern made in Asia, South America, and Europe (with a particular focus on Italy).
The company disclosed that it […]
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As reported in China Daily, German sports apparel giant Puma AG won its lawsuit against a Shanghai supermarket for selling fake Puma athletic shoes.
The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Fu-mart illegally sold sneakers bearing logos identical to the Puma logo. The court ruled that the supermarket failed to identify the infringement, and thereby […]
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Two former Ferrari engineers accused of stealing trade secrets have been convicted of industrial espionage and sentenced to jail by an Italian court over charges of stealing confidential engineering data from Ferrari and using it to design cars for motor racing rivals Toyota.
Sensitive data stolen from Ferrari included engineering documents, test data, and other undisclosed […]
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TRACE International, a non-profit membership association (and important partner of the Ethisphere Council) that helps companies combat bribery, announced the creation of a new database that can help businesses track the prevalence of bribery attempts and requests.
This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, […]
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On Tuesday of last week, China executed its former chief food and drug regulator (Zheng Xiaoyu, age 62) for taking nearly $1 million in bribes from eight pharmaceutical companies to approve medicines. Reportedly at least six of the medicines turned out to be fakes - and some of the ingredients caused bodily harm.
According […]
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From our “in-case-you-missed-it-while-out-on-your- holidays-during-July” file the DOJ announced gleefully that four former executives with computer networking and security vendor Enterasys Networks Inc. had been sentenced to long prison terms for their roles in accounting fraud at the company.
The executives were originally convicted on conspiracy and fraud charges during a December 2006 trial.
In U.S. District Court […]
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Actually the proper term from the nuclear cold war drill of the 1950s is “duck, cover and roll.” However, the “roll” part seems inappropriate today as Online Tire Review (yes, there really is such a website - www.tirereview.com) broke the news yesterday that Foreign Tire Sales (FTS), the New Jersey importer at the center […]
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Toshiba has announced that it will redouble its efforts to encourage greater customer response to its recall of certain ‘flamable’ Sony batteries that had installed in Toshiba laptops. The original recall had been announced by Sony in September of last year with customers eligible to receive free replacement of the battery packs […]
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In a rare setback for DOJ regarding FCPA prosecutions, a judge dismissed bribery charges against two American businessmen accused of trying to pay-off top Azerbaijan officials over the country’s abandoned 1990s oil privatisation programme.
Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed the bribery counts against David Pinkerton, a former managing director of AIG, and Frederic Bourke after ruling that […]
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Abbott Laboratories Inc. has sued a French AIDS group for staging what the pharmaceutical and medical products maker says was a cyber attack against its Web site back in April.
Abbott spokeswoman Jennifer Smoter said the cyberattack disrupted the company’s Web site for hours April 26 on the eve of its annual meeting. “We don’t […]
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In April, an Indonesian court cleared the Newmont’s Indonesian subsidiary, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, and its president Richard Ness of charges related to dumping toxic waste into a local ocean bay.
Now the president of that unit is filing a lawsuit against the New York Times and a reporter over the environmental accusations made in the […]
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On the heels of Credit Suisse’s celebration of a new chief executive, the company got the news that a former employee, senior Wall Street banker Hafiz Naseem, had been arrested and charged with 23 counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.
The former energy banker allegedly forwarded top secret details of Credit […]
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