The year 2020 seems to be the magic number for carbon reduction targets. Many companies have used that as the cut off point in their public commitments of reducing emissions and implementing new environmental initiatives. Brazil is the latest entity to join this race as the country recently announced it will reduce 36 [...]

A group of Latin American former clients of Stanford Financial Group have filed a lawsuit against Willis Group Holdings, the giant insurance broker, claiming that it aided in Stanford’s alleged $7 billion fraud. The lawsuit is seeking class action status on behalf of over 1,000 plaintiffs and asking for $1.6 billion in damages.
The clients [...]

Cisco employees in Brazil got a surprise when over 600 federal police and tax officers, armed with over 90 different subpoenas, stormed Cisco System’s Brazilian operations earlier this week. Their target was any information regarding the company’s alleged tax evasion, dodging an estimated $826 million. The raid was the dramatic climax of a two-year [...]

Dole Food Company announced that its Costa Rican subsidiary, Fondo Nacional de Financiamento Forestal, the National Forestry Financing Fund and an entity of the Ministry of Environment and Energy of CostaRica partnered to create a carbon neutral supply chain for banana and pineapple products. The products moving from Costa Rica to North America and [...]

Cafe del Mar, a popular restaurant near Lima, Peru, was shut down for 60 days for discriminatory entrance rules. The store was also fined $76,000. Although three other clubs in Lima have been fined for similar charges, this is the first example of an establishment being forced to close its doors.
The closing marked [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

According to media reports, the Coca-Cola Co. has filed a criminal complaint against executives of French food and drink maker Danone, as well as its PR firm Euro RSCG. In this complaint, the company accuses them of orchestrating a smear campaign against Coke’s Dasani water brand in the Argentinian market – a violation of [...]

Chile’s securities regulator has fined former presidential candidate Sebastian Pinera US$680,000 for conducting illegal insider trading of the airline stock LAN Airlines SA.
At issue was that Mr. Pinera, a Board of Director member of the company, bought the airline’s stock just a few days before a strong earnings report in July of last year. [...]

The Justice Department has announced it is opening an investigation into American Express Bank International related to “black market exchange accounts.” Red flags were raised with the Drug Enforcement Administration after American Express disclosed that it reserved $60 million to deal with matters dealing with money laundering issues in its most recent 10-Q.
This is [...]