July 21st, 2009
The Economist published a chart today which shows a disturbing trend in American business. Economist.com’s Daily Chart shows the number of “suspicious activity reports” which were reported to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) at the US Treasury Department for each year between 1997 and 2008. I’ll let the graph speak for itself: To read
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July 17th, 2009
British life insurance company
Friends Provident is doing something unusual in today's business environment - not only has it shunned moving offshore to a low tax jurisdiction, it's insisting that another company move onshore too before it'll consider a merger. From the
Guardian:
Insurer Friends Provident today set out terms for a merger with Clive Cowdery's buyout vehicle Resolution. The deal would scupper Resolution's plans to pay a select band of executives 10% of annual profits and base the new company in a tax haven.
Friends Provident said it was...
July 17th, 2009
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has released its roundup of the top ten stories of the week. Money-laundering, fraud, and bribery cases came in at numbers 5, 7, and 8. From the
FBI:
5. Buffalo: Two People Charged in United Nations Fraud Case
A 14-count Indictment was unsealed charging Deborah Bowers and Steve Jabar with wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements in connection with a scheme to defraud the United Nations Development Fund for Women of tens of thousands of dollars. Full Story
...
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July 16th, 2009
Today, the UK Department for International Development released its annual report, which sums up the work that DFID has done over the past year. Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, said in a
statement:
"The achievements highlighted here have helped to transform lives for the better. Thanks to DFID's work in 2008, more than three million children have been vaccinated against measles - a disease which continues to claim lives across the developing world. We have helped train over 100,000 teachers, provided clean water to almost a million people, and given more...
