Brazil has already announced a few positive steps in this direction. For example, the country announced that deforestation in the Amazon has been slowed by 45 percent over the past four years. Over 50 percent of Brazil’s energy comes from renewable sources, according to a report by Forbes. And the government is proposing a new law that would give federal grants and other assistance to land owners that attempt to reintroduce native vegetation to their land.

The service is allowed to operate as a natural monopoly, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, because having more than one identification system would complicate the trading system. While accepting this fact, the EU’s investigation is looking into whether or not Standard & Poor’s is overcharging for the service.

A spokesperson for S&P told the Wall Street Journal that the company “strongly disagrees with the EC’s preliminary assessment and believes the Commission has grossly undervalued Standard & Poor’s effort, expertise and costs required to operate a global identification system that benefits millions of investors and market participants world-wide.”

Police allege that Si had discovered several incidents of illegal activity performed by Truong and reported him to government officials. After Si made his reports, Truong allegedly hired Luan to harass Si in an attempt to have the former deputy withdraw his reports. After Si refused, Luan allegedly hired the five other men and attacked and killed Si.

PGS, a subsidiary of the large security firm Securitas Security Services, was providing security services for a Department of Energy installation between 2001 and 2005. During that time, the company was reimbursed by the DOE for all costs, including the costs of providing health insurance to employees, according to a statement by the Department of Justice. PGS allegedly overcharged for those health care costs.

The case was brought to the attention of the DOJ by two whistleblowers who filed a qui tam suit against the company under the False Claims Act. The two whistleblowers will receive a total of $172,805 from the settlement, according to the DOJ.

The clients say that the Willis Group illegally vouched for R. Allen Stanford, the owner of Stanford Financial Group, in letters he sent to his customers, according to a report by Bloomberg News. The complaint alleges that Willis acted as a sales agent for Stanford Financial, crossing the line of being solely an insurance broker.

All of the plaintiffs in this case are from Venezuela. A previous, similar case was filed on behalf of former Mexican clients of Stanford.

A spokesperson for the Willis Group told the New York Times that “it did not suspect any of its workers knew of fraud at Stanford” and that the company will “defend itself vigorously.”

“The personal compensation received by CEOs while the companies they serve engage in wrongdoing can be clawed back,” said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement released by the SEC. “The costs of such misconduct need not be borne by shareholders alone.”

“Jenkins was captain of the ship and profited during the time that CSK was misleading investors about the company’s financial health,” said Rosalind R. Tyson, Director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office, in the statement. ‘The law requires Jenkins to return those proceeds to CSK.”

Commentary: The final line of the SEC statement reads, “The SEC’s complaint does not allege that Jenkins engaged in the fraudulent conduct.” This is an important new precedent set by the SEC. Now, even if a CEO is unaware of accounting fraud occurring within his or her organization, he or she is still liable for it. The SEC was given the power to do this through claw back provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley, though this is the first time the provisions have been used.

The list, which reportedly took 18 months to compile, was created with the help of environmental research groups, including KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost and CorporateRegister.com.

The top 5 Companies on the Green Rankings are:

1. Hewlett-Packard
2. Dell
3. Johnson & Johnson
4. Intel
5. IBM

“The Commission has reason to believe that there may have been a violation in this sector of rules on restrictive business practices (Article 81),” the EC said in a prepared statement.

Commentary: The Commission pointed out that raids and inspections are a “preliminary step” in larger cartel and anti-trust investigations. Still, one has to be suspicious because of the high-profile raids and large dollar amount fines levied against glass companies at the end of last year. Although the information on the special glass sector raids is just now becoming known, the Commission admitted it began investigating in March of 2009, fresh off the case of the earlier, 2008 glass cartel.

As the trial begins, renewed attention has been given to the case, particularly from within Hollywood. As Franceska Schroeder, a trade compliance attorney told the Associated Press, “I think a message is being sent loud and clear that the government is going after violators no matter what industry they are in.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Green face up to life in prison if convicted on all their charges. They both deny making payments to earn the film festival contracts.

The other, less common initiative involves “10 different green design restaurants,” according to Bob Langert, VP for social responsibility at McDonald’s. Langert told Daily Finance News that the 10 stores will be used as “learning laboratories” that will help teach the company how to reduce water and energy usage. According to Langert, a Chicago store already “reduced its water usage by 50 percent and energy usage by 25 percent.” McDonald’s hopes to extend the same reductions company-wide.

Filipino workers were not allowed to use the company cafeteria for their lunches. Non-Chinese employees were not allowed access to food, lodging or medical care. The company said this separation, although blatantly illegal, “promoted a harmonious working environment.”

The EEOC also alleged in its lawsuit that pregnant employees were laid off and replaced with other, non-pregnant workers.

After the discriminated employees complained and reported the violations to the EEOC, they were all told that they were being laid off because of low sales. All the laid off employees were replaced by Chinese workers.

“This major settlement shows that the EEOC will vigorously protect the rights of all workers, within every reach of our jurisdiction, to be free of discrimination,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The resolutions of these egregious cases bring a measure of justice to the many workers who were retaliated against and otherwise victimized by discriminatory employment practices because of their national origin, age, or pregnancy.”

The $1.7 million payment will resolve four separate discrimination lawsuits brought against L&T and its affiliates by the EEOC. The affiliates are Tan Holdings Corporation; Tan Holdings Overseas, Inc.; Concorde Garment Manufacturing Corp.; Micro Pacific, Inc.; Seasonal Inc.; and L&T International Corp.

The company will also have to implement a series of injunctive relief measures, such as hiring an equal opportunity consultant to train all managers and employees and agreeing to being monitored by the EEOC, among other remedies.

Filipino workers were not allowed to use the company cafeteria for their lunches. Non-Chinese employees were not allowed access to food, lodging or medical care. The company said this separation, although blatantly illegal, “promoted a harmonious working environment.”

The EEOC also alleged in its lawsuit that pregnant employees were laid off and replaced with other, non-pregnant workers.

After the discriminated employees complained and reported the violations to the EEOC, they were all told that they were being laid off because of low sales. All the laid off employees were replaced by Chinese workers.

“This major settlement shows that the EEOC will vigorously protect the rights of all workers, within every reach of our jurisdiction, to be free of discrimination,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The resolutions of these egregious cases bring a measure of justice to the many workers who were retaliated against and otherwise victimized by discriminatory employment practices because of their national origin, age, or pregnancy.”

The $1.7 million payment will resolve four separate discrimination lawsuits brought against L&T and its affiliates by the EEOC. The affiliates are Tan Holdings Corporation; Tan Holdings Overseas, Inc.; Concorde Garment Manufacturing Corp.; Micro Pacific, Inc.; Seasonal Inc.; and L&T International Corp.

The company will also have to implement a series of injunctive relief measures, such as hiring an equal opportunity consultant to train all managers and employees and agreeing to being monitored by the EEOC, among other remedies.

Antasari, Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commision of Indonesia (KPK), was alleged to have orchestrated the murder of Nasrudin Zulkarnaen because Nasrudin was allegedly intimately involved with a female golf caddy that Antasari was attracted to, according to Indonesian news reports. Antasari denies involvement in the murder.

Commentary: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono champions an effective national anti-corruption effort (so much so that he earned a spot on Ethisphere’s 2007’s 100 Most Influential in Business Ethics list). It goes without saying this puts a strain on those efforts.

In order to sell three of its nasal sprays—Azmacort, Nasacort and Nasacort AQ—to Medicaid, the company advertised that it sold the products to consumers at a higher value than its actual market price. This violated the Medicaid Drug Rebate Statute that requires companies to sell drugs to Medicaid for the best price that it offers to everyday consumers.

The $95.5 million will be broken down into three parts: $49 million will go to the U.S. government, $40 million will go to state Medicaid programs that overpaid for the drugs and the remainder will go to other public health entities that overpaid for the products.

The fine is the highest ever imposed by the CPSC for allegations of importing or distributing a regulated product. It is also the third highest fine in CPSC history, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The settlement “resolves Mattel’s outstanding issues with the agency related to certain matters that arose in 2007,” the company said in a statement. “Mattel promptly took a series of steps after discovering compliance issues with some of our toys at that time. We were able to effectively minimize any potential concerns by launching a fast-track recall of the affected product in conjunction with the CPSC and other global regulatory agencies.”

Valspar was tipped off to the theft after Lee allegedly resigned abruptly from his job two weeks after returning from a business trip in China. According to the complaint against him, Lee accepted a job at Nippon Paint Co., one of Valspar’s competitors.

The company discovered suspicious activity on Lee’s laptop, such as recently deleted records as well as a hidden file that contained a number of unauthorized programs, according to the Minneapolis Business Journal.

The employee, Kimberly Lebron, a compliance manager, alleged that the South Korean postal agency offered to invest $50 million into an AIG fund in exchange for a six week paid vacation for one of its employees, according to a story by Reuters.

After raising the issue with her supervisors, she alleged that she was fired from the company in retaliation. AIG denies the allegations and plans to “defend the action vigorously.”

Commentary: Of course, we don’t know the other circumstances of her employment with AIG but the concept that someone is blowing the whistle on a single vacation underscores the mainstreaming of FCPA awareness and willingness by an employee to highlight what is non-compliance. We are not talking millions of dollars in bribes here.

Furthermore, if true, we wonder why a company would bother adding a compliance officer to its payroll if it didn’t plan on listening to complaints raised by the compliance team in the first place. Compliance professionals are, obviously, experts in areas such as FCPA violations. And, for that matter, are also very familiar with laws protecting them against retaliation.

According to the company, as part of the new procedures, McDonald’s has agreed to survey all its potato suppliers, create a list of best practices in regards to pesticide use and distribute to its global suppliers, and relay its findings to shareholders.

“Because McDonald’s has such a commanding presence in the marketplace, this commitment offers the promise of significant reductions of pesticide use — which will benefit consumer health, as well as farm workers, local agricultural communities, and the environment,” said Bruce Herbert, chief executive officer of Newground Social Investment.

The former employee, John Schwab, alleges in his complaint that he was informed by one of the company’s Directors that CEO William Hartman was requesting a bonus of $7,500,000 million dollars as part of his four year compensation package. Because Citizens had recently accepted $300 million in TARP funds, Schwab told the Director that he did not feel the compensation was appropriate.

The Board of Directors later decided that Hartman’s role as CEO would end in January of 2009. Two days before that day, Hartman called Schwab into his office and allegedly told Schwab that he had undermined him. The CEO then allegedly told Schwab, “You’re going to retire.”

Schwab, 64, later sued the company for wrongful discharge and age discrimination.

One of the biggest changes brought about by the new bill is the reversal of the recent Supreme Court Decision in Allison Engine Co. v. United States. That decision created a loophole in which subcontractors receiving government money would not be liable under the False Claims Act, according to a statement released by the National Whistleblowers Center.

With the new legislation, a company can be charged under the FCA if an employee “knowingly makes a false claim to obtain money or property, any part of which is provided by the Government without regard to whether the wrongdoer deals directly with the Federal Government; with an agent acting on the Government’s behalf; or with a third party contractor, grantee, or other recipient of such money or property.”

Previously, government subcontractors could only be charged under the FCA if they knowingly and intentionally defrauded the government, not the primary contractor.

The bill was first introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Chuck Grassley of Iowa in February.

If you’re so inclined, you can read the full text of the bill here. Of course, the simplest way to protect yourself and keep this all straight is…just don’t defraud anyone.

The ruling came after a complaint was filed with OSHA by an in-house attorney who worked for a publicly traded company (the attorney’s name and company seem to have been withheld). After the attorney learned that her company had sent misleading information to the SEC, she reported the information to the Board of Directors.

Her company hired a privately held, outside consulting firm to help reorganize. This is important because, after the attorney followed up on her report to the Board, she was fired by the outside company.

The attorney then sued both her company and the outside, privately-held firm that fired her, alleging that they both violated the whistle-blower provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley. An administrative law judge, as well as the DOL’s Administrative Review Board, ruled in her favor.

Valspar was tipped off to the theft after Lee allegedly resigned abruptly from his job two weeks after returning from a business trip in China. The company discovered suspicious activity on Lee’s laptop, such as recently deleted records as well as a hidden file that contained a number of unauthorized programs, according to the Minneapolis Business Journal.

According to the complaint against him, Lee accepted a job at Nippon Paint Co., one of Valspar’s competitors.

According to the online note, the hacker claimed to have stolen 8.3 million patients’ personal information in Virginia, deleted any back up files of the information and demanded $10 million for the information to be returned safely.

According to local Virginia news reports, as well as Wikileaks.org, an online site dedicated to publishing leaked documents, the hacker said, “I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh :( “ and said officials could reach him within seven days by emailing hackingforprofit@yahoo.com.