A significant High Court judgment that brokers took bribes to push allegedly ruinous loans to farmers has fuelled campaigners’ demands for a change in approach to financial crime in our region. Spates of evictions and land-grabs scarred Britain as it exited the 2008 financial crash. A crisis of ‘bad’ debts, repossessions, cases of homelessness and even suicides engulfed farmers, builders, property developers and small-scale entrepreneurs of all types across the UK and Ireland. Some banks were later found to be asset-stripping borrowers, ostensibly to ensure their own survival. Not all the alleged debtors gave up though, with some turning detective… Read More
Two Individuals Indicted for Money Laundering Related to Odebrecht Bribery and Fraud Scheme
Bank Executives Charged with Conspiring to Launder Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Through U.S. Financial System Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, an indictment was unsealed charging Peter Weinzierl and Alexander Waldstein, both citizens of Austria, for their roles in a scheme to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Odebrecht S.A. (Odebrecht), a Brazil-based global construction conglomerate, in order to pay bribes around the world and defraud the Brazilian government. Weinzierl was arrested earlier today in the United Kingdom pursuant to a provisional arrest request from the United States. Waldstein remains… Read More
Fourth oil executive sentenced for paying bribes to win a multi-million pound contract in post-occupation Iraq
Paul Bond has today been sentenced to three and half years’ imprisonment for conspiring with others to bribe Iraqi public officials to secure lucrative oil contracts in post-occupation Iraq. Earlier this week, Bond, a former senior sales manager at SBM Offshore (SBM), was found guilty on two counts of conspiracy to give corrupt payments following a retrial of his case at Southwark Crown Court. This was the fourth conviction the SFO secured in its wide-scale Unaoil bribery investigation, which uncovered the payment of over $17m worth of bribes to secure $1.7bn worth of contracts for Unaoil and its clients. In… Read More
Deutsche Bank Reaches $100 Million Deferred-Prosecution Deal
Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay more than $130 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it bribed foreign officials and manipulated the market for precious-metals futures through a trading tactic known as spoofing. The Frankfurt-based bank agreed to a deal in which it won’t be prosecuted as long as it doesn’t engage in the practices again for more than three years, and wasn’t required to plead guilty to the charges. The case was brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, and Washington who secured a $920 million fine against JPMorgan Chase & Co. last year, the largest… Read More
2020: We cast a cold eye over the 15 major highlights of a financial crime year in review
As we near the end of one of the toughest years for people and businesses in decades, we take a look back at some of the biggest happenings in the world of financial crime, corruption and the laws in place to stop it. 1. Cryptocurrency: the way of the future2020 has seen governments across the world tighten their grip on virtual assets. They were once seen as an easy pathway to launder money, but this year, the trend accelerates away from that. This month, France announced sweeping new KYC measures for all crypto companies operating within its borders. Registration will… Read More