He, and many others, thought he was in the clear. But, former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, despite pleas for clemency citing a conversion to priesthood, the funding of his church, and his nine children, has been sentenced to six years and ten months in prison for bribery. The charges include six counts of conspiracy and [...]

According to media reports, another oilfield services provider, Global Industries Ltd, is conducting an internal investigation into possible illegal payments in its West African operations. Specifically the company is looking into a subsidiary’s reimbursement of certain expenses incurred by a customs agent in connection with shipments of materials and the temporary importation of vessels into [...]

This is not good. After only six months on the job, the senior official that Siemens hired as part of its effort to stamp out corruption is out of a job. Daniel Noa, the recently-hired former federal prosecutor who had led the corporation’s compliance efforts since the beginning of the year will step down by [...]

Brocade Communications has agreed to pay a $7 million civil penalty in a settlement with the SEC for allegations that former company executives committed securities fraud by continuously granting backdated stock options. The fine was paid in a deal that allowed Brocade to neither admit nor deny the charges. The company finds itself paving the [...]

Several Nature’s Sunshine shareholders scored a partial victory when a federal judge denied most of the company’s efforts to dismiss a consolidated class action lawsuit. The lawsuit accused the company and several executives of filing misleading Sarbanes-Oxley Act certifications, Form 10-Q earnings reports and press releases with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to illicit [...]

The SEC has settled charges against California-based software maker Mercury Interactive to the tune of $28 million. According to the SEC, former senior officers of the software maker perpetrated a fraudulent and deceptive scheme from 1997 to 2005 to award themselves and other employees undisclosed, secret compensation by backdating stock option grants, failing to record [...]

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, the world’s largest hotels operator, announced this week that its Asia Pacific chief executive had resigned after the company discovered that he lied on his résumé. Patrick Imbardelli was on the verge of being appointed to InterContinental’s board when the company learned that the Singapore-based executive did not have degrees from [...]

Tone from the top and transparency are important parts of a company’s culture. Sirius Satellite Radio’s CEO Mel Karmazin certainly got the transparency right at the company’s annual shareholder meeting two weeks ago, but the tone, while amusing for some, might have been alarming to others. In short, the CEO summed up company performance in [...]

In another stunning example about “HOW NOT TO” set the proper tone from the top, a former member of the German parliament and the ex-director of Volkswagen’s works council was convicted yesterday of using company money to buy prostitutes and lying to cover it up. The former head of Volkswagen’s work council had previously won [...]

Wellpoint announced this past week that the organization insisted that its CFO, David Colby, step down due to an unspecified violation of the Wellpoint Code of Conduct. According to the company, concerns raised in “recent days” prompted Wellpoint to act swiftly by commissioning an outside legal firm to investigate – the firm then confirmed that [...]

The controversy surrounding the Chinese advertising and research firm, Xinhua Finance Media Ltd, continues. The recently IPO’ed company’s stock has yet to recover from a more than 50% drop in its price after reports ran disclosing damaging information about the company’s CFO which had not been disclosed in its IPO prospectus. According to reports , [...]

We live in a different age. Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, has been forced to resign over alleged improprieties involving securing a pay raise and better position for his girlfriend. While international politics and the Iraqi war certainly contributed to his downfall, the board of the World Bank focused on Wolfowitz’s violation [...]

Comverse Technology’s former General Counsel, William F. Sorin, has been sentenced to 366 days in prison for securities backdating, in a plea-bargain made with the Brooklyn district attorney. Sorin was also ordered to pay $52 million in damages, as compensations to stock holders who suffered losses by the securities backdating, which took place in 1998-2002. [...]

Marks & Spencer has made quite a splash in announcing a detailed plan to do business “more ethically”. M & S’s announcement was met with a flurry of press, including a thorough piece from the BBC. At the core is a 100-point five-year plan to re-engineer itself to become a carbon neutral, zero-waste-to-landfill, ethical-trading, sustainable-sourcing, [...]

The SEC has filed charges against two former senior executives of Apple, Inc. in a matter involving improper stock option backdating. A settlement was announced simultaneously in one of the cases (the case involving charges against Fred Thompson, the former Apple CFO). However, the charges against Nancy R. Heinen (former Apple General Counsel) remain. These [...]

The Justice Department saw its five-year investigation of former corporate executives end on a high note with the conviction of one-time Qwest Chief Executive Joe Nacchio. Nacchio joined the likes of Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling and Worldcom’s Bernard Ebbers as he was found guilty on 19 of 42 counts of illegal insider trading. Collecting over $250 [...]

On April 2nd, Steve Heyer, the CEO of Starwood Hotels (NYSE: HOT) resigned saying that he was “burned out”. In an interview, Heyer characterized the situation as fallout from strategic and structural changes he made while “transforming [Starwood] from a real estate hotel company to a branding company.” Heyer, while acknowledging he can be a [...]

The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies has decided to issue a press release to announce to the world that they have developed an ethics training program to make available to its independent agents and brokers. The program consists of a half-day ethics workshop and a quarterly newsletter. Excerpts from the PR and related newsletter below… [...]

At long last, the SEC has voted to ease up some of the overkill provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley which have been onerous on companies, particularly smaller ones. This vote represented an endorsement of the recommendations of the agency’s professional staff to eliminate waste and duplication in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and encourages filers to be able to focus [...]

Wow! Okay the GC was also the Chief Ethics Officer so that is a little unfair – but some headlines just about write themselves and prevent us from having to pretend that we are clever and witty. This case comes to us courtesy of the current former Chief Ethics Officer and General Counsel of Realogy, [...]

Delta Air Lines CEO Gerald Grinstein said this week that he is refusing any stock, stock options or cash when the carrier emerges from bankruptcy. Grinstein, who has led the United States’ No. 3 airline since January 2004, said he wants Delta instead to invest what he would have gotten in post-bankruptcy bonuses, to be [...]

This ‘call to government for legislation’, allegedly with the support of $4 trillion of investment money, is the latest drumbeat for carbon emissions reduction laws and regulations. The group, organized by Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, issued a Climate Call to Action at a press conference today in Washington DC. The 65 [...]

According to a report issued by Walt Disney Co., while Pixar Animation Studios had backdated some employee stock options before it was acquired by Disney, no one currently associated with the company had engaged in deliberate misconduct. Commentary: As we have reported before, Steve Jobs has long been known to have been an extremely hands-on [...]

Casino mogul Steve Wynn sued Lloyd’s of London this week saying the insurance company failed to act properly on his demands to pay $54 million in lost value for a Picasso that was damaged when Wynn accidentally poked a hole in the canvas with his elbow. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan sought [...]

Canadian lawyer Blois Colpitts has agreed to pay a penalty of $50,000 for failing to uncover evidence of an alleged conspiracy among other directors to infl ate the price of Knowledge House stock. In addition, Colpitts has been banned from holding any company directorships for two years. The Nova Scotia Securities Commission said the lawyer [...]