According to the DOJ, no individual at the Department of Energy had approved his annual performance award.

Of course, if you forge your own performance review in a private company you will probably get fired. If you do this while working for the federal government, you will receive criminal charges. The man faces a maximum penalty of a $250,000 fine and five years in prison.

WPP alleged that Benatti secretly took for his personal gain the majority of the proceeds from a £17 million takeover of an Italian advertising company. Benatti fired back, alleging that he was dismissed improperly. He claimed that he was let go because he “had fallen out” with the company’s COO in Italy, Daniela Weber, who was allegedly involved in a relationship with company chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured). According to the story, after a five-day hearing, Benatti and WPP have reached a confidential settlement, thus ending the case.

Last year Sorrell also filed a libel suit against Benatti after Benatti allegedly distributed “a computer-generated image showing [Sorrell] with Ms Weber labeled ‘the mad dwarf and the nympho schizo.’” In that case, Benatti paid £120,000 to Sorrell, but didn’t admit liability.

The insider trading allegations stemmed from the delay of the Airbus A380, a new jumbo jet. Back in 2005, several EADS executives sold massive amounts of stock just before the public announcement of the A380 delay, which caused Airbus stock to plummet.

Recently, two U.S. law firms have entered the fracas by filing suit against EADS. One case was filed by the law firm Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins of San Diego, and the other by the law firm Dreier of New Yorker, both on behalf of U.S. shareholders that own EADS shares on European Exchanges. The two suits are seeking class-action status.

Currently, French regulators are looking into the actions of the companies, which may pose a problem for the U.S. suits.

Bloomberg News reported the following:

“Even if U.S. rules allow them to ask for higher damages, I think we’re more likely to actually win them,” Frederik-Karel Canoy said today in a telephone interview. “Because of the on-going criminal investigation in France, the evidence will all be kept here. I don’t see how we can collaborate on it.”

The U.S. attorneys shot back:

Dreier lawyer Brian Kerr in a telephone interview today [said] that he and his clients “don’t see why we need to wait until the French judicial system comes to its conclusion to bring our claims.”

Well, according to California law, tips can’t be split between employees and managers. A California court has ruled that Starbucks shift supervisors are in fact “managers” according to state law. Because of this, Starbucks now faces a class-action case stemming from one disgruntled California employee who filed suit in 2004 for the barista/shift supervisor tip sharing. The preliminary trial found the company liable and the damages portion starts today, according to the San Diego Tribune. According to a lawyer involved in the case, the final damages could be in the eight figure range.

The blog Starbucks Gossip has a take on the story here. What’s particularly interesting are the reader’s comments, most of whom apparently work at Starbucks stores across the United States and Canada and tend to side with the shift supervisors on this issue.

According to prosecutors, Fabian’s alleged scheme defrauded his former employer, the government consulting company Maximus Inc., as well as an equipment leasing company called Solarcom.

Fabian has presented himself as a successful entrepreneur, who started an activity-based cost and information technology consulting company which was later sold to Maximus in 2000. While at Maximus as an executive he supposedly made fraudulent sale-leaseback transactions for purchasing computer hardware and software. Prosecutors allege the equipment was either never purchased or much cheaper products were purchased. His arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 28. Read more about it in Forbes.

Commentary: In business over the years we have noticed that sometimes the people who are bragging most about their success are the ones whose success is based upon fraud and false pretenses. Sadly, that could be the case there. What many people did not realize that Fabian was also the campaign finance co-chair for the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. And yes, he did resign from that position as well.

Mr. Hill, founder of the company, was pushed out by the very same board of directors that he had hand-picked to serve over the years (we reviewed Commerce’s code of conduct in the last issue of Ethisphere Magazine by the way and were quite confused by it).

The reason for the board’s turn? Quite simply, federal bank regulators said they would no longer allow the bank to open up any more branches as long as Mr. Hill remained at the helm.

The bank is already operating under a cease-and-desist order with regulators, which required it to stop entering into contracts with businesses run by its board members, officers, and members of their families. The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is also looking into possible illegal insider dealing at Commerce, with the primary focus on Mr. Hill.

Yesterday’s New York Times wrote an excellent and interesting piece on Mr. Hill, which makes Donald Trump look good (and relatively discrete if at all possible) in comparison. The story divulged information which would make it seem that the word “excess” does not appear in Mr. Hill’s dictionary:

Hill openly awarded tens of millions of dollars in contracts to friends and relatives, including about $50 million to his wife, who decorated and designed many of the nearly 450 branches (and would conduct surprise inspections with her Yorkie, Sir Duffield) and…built a 46,000-square-foot Tuscan-style mansion in Moorestown, NJ where a farmhouse once stood, complete a 4,000-square-foot gym (and overseeing construction via a helicopter in order to give construction crews orders via megaphone).

Click here to read the whole story (free registration may be required).

Commentary: Sir Duffield? This guy is unreal. Anyhow, this also is not Commerce Bank’s first brush with the law. In 2005, two senior executives were convicted of conspiracy for giving loans to the Philadelphia city treasurer in exchange for the city’s financial business. The city treasurer was found guilty of fraud. Municipal underwriting has been a huge profit driver for Commerce over the years.

The upcoming study was co-authored by professors James Westphal of the University of Michigan and Michael Clement of the University of Texas, Austin, and was based on a survey of several thousand analysts and hundreds of managers between 2000 and 2004.

According to the study, 63% of equity analysts reported receiving favors from CEOs, CFOs, and other senior executives of the companies that they covered. Favors included such things as recommending the analyst for another job and helping them gain access to a private club.

The problem with that? The study found a direct correlation between the amount of favors received by the analyst and his/her likelihood to upgrade or downgrade a stock based upon news and earnings.

Commentary: We are not surprised, are you? Whenever big money is involved, there are going to be conflicts of interest – and they will be difficult to root out. This study brings back memories of Jack Grubman, the Citibank analyst who upgraded his rating on AT&T stock in exchange for Citibank’s CEO (Sandy Weill) helping Grubman’s toddler get into preschool. Don’t believe us or remember that case? See for yourself in this litigation release from the SEC.

This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, the World Bank, UPS, Tyco International, and Rolls-Royce.

BRIBEline (the acronym stands for the “Business Registry for International Bribery and Extortion”) is essentially an online survey that is available in 14 languages. While no names are required or collected, the survey asks participants to respond to ten multiple-choice questions. All information is kept anonymous so that reports cannot be used for legal investigations or prosecutions.

Ultimately, the information gathered through BRIBEline will be collected and publicly reported by TRACE in hopes of highlighting where the worst offenders reside in terms of country, ministry, or sector. This in turn will help companies target their compliance and anti-corruption efforts.

Commentary: We think that this is a fabulous tool that reflects the excellent leadership in anti-corruption demonstrated by TRACE’s leader, Alexandra Wrage. There has been a real dearth of information about where bribes are occurring, with companies limited to examining only their own experience and DOJ prosecution and investigation records.

We strongly encourage companies to get involved with BRIBEline and look forward to some of the interesting trends and information that come as a result.

Allegedly, soon after Coca-Cola launched Dasani in Argentina in late 2005, the bottled water has been smeared as “bottled tap water” and “cancer water” on the Internet. It is Coke’s position that there is strong evidence linking Danone and Euro RSCG to the two-year long campaign.

And, as the Internet has “no borders”, the campaign appears to have spread to other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. Coca-Cola said that this has negatively impacted their business.

Commentary: Want to know a few interesting facts?

Interesting fact #1 – - While, theoretically, the penalties could be huge (up to $10,000 per consumer), they won’t be. This is in part because under Argentine law, any fines/penalties/damages in this case would not be paid to Coca-Cola but instead to the Argentine state treasury. Coca-Cola probably isn’t looking for big fines so much as to make a statement, offset some bad publicity, and to have the practice stopped.

Interesting fact #2: Unfortunately, the history of Dasani is not crystal clean, which will cloud up Coca-Cola’s case. In fact, back in March 2004 the company had to recall it from the shelves in the UK due to excessive levels of cancer-causing bromate being present in the bottled water.

Interesting fact #3 – - Evian is a huge bottle water brand/supplier (owned by Danone). Guess who the U.S. distributor is? Answer: Coca-Cola.