While the old adage of being caught with a “hand in the cookie jar” might seem appropriate in a stock options fraud case involving Wireless Facilities, this is certainly one of the biggest cookie jars we’ve ever seen. Vencent Donlan has been convicted of embezzling over $6.3 million from the company by – get this [...]

Does anyone need further proof that the private and personal lives of CEOs are now fair game and are being intertwined into discussions around compliance, ethics and governance? Okay then, here you go… First of all, CNBC is reporting this morning that Jimmy Cayne, the CEO of Bear Stearns, is being investigated… Investigated for what? [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a 6-3 vote this past week to toss out a Quebec class-action lawsuit against Dell Computer over incorrect prices that were mistakenly posted online. A Montreal man, Olivier Dumoulin, had filed suit against Dell because the company refused to honor the lower prices for Axim handheld personal digital [...]

Agreeing to pay the federal government $16.5 million, Mellon Bank settled claims that it allowed overworked employees to destroy thousands of federal tax returns and payments in 2001. Mellon had a contract with the I.R.S. to process income tax returns and tax-payment checks. Its employees, feeling overwhelmed and unable to meet the deadlines, destroyed over [...]

McDonald’s, in one of its latest announcements centering around more eco-friendly practices, announced last week that it will start converting its cooking oil into biodiesel. The intention is to run all of its 155 UK delivery trucks on biodiesel made entirely from cooking oil collected from its restaurants by the end of this year. The [...]

According to media reports, global investment banking and brokerage firm Morgan Stanley is facing yet another lawsuit about inappropriate sexual harassment by employees. This case is based on accusations of former Morgan Stanley assistant against her boss, a broker in the bank’s Melville, Long Island office. As the NY Daily News reported last week:   [...]

The Times over in the U.K. has done us the favor of reminding us that it is not only in the U.S. where we have judges who file a $54 million lawsuit against a drycleaner over a lost pair of pants. For some humor, click here if you want to see their top 14 compilation [...]

On what must have been a slow news day in Detroit, FoxNews is reporting about a Michigan woman who is suing Starbursts’ parent company, Mars Inc. for more than $25,000 for “permanent personal injuries” she claims she sustained after biting into one of their yellow candies in 2005. The “victim”, Victoria McArthur of Romero, Mich., [...]

According to media reports coming out of Sweden, a Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis will enable the metal loving part-time dishwasher (how appropriate!) to supplement his income with state benefits. Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, [...]

Meet Ronnie Segev. He’s a pianist. He also has called Priceline.com 215 times asking for a refund on a plane ticket. Allegedly the General Counsel of Priceline sent the cops after him and he went to jail for 40 hours. He wants everyone to forget about the incident. Thanks to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, that’s [...]

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 [...]

According to media reports, a NY man is suing Novartis over a days-long erection that he attributed to ingesting the Boost Plus Nutritional Energy Drink. As 29-year-old Christopher Woods told the New York Post… “It gave me a lot of energy — too much energy,” Woods said of the protein drink. “It was unbearable and [...]

There are plenty of stories about stupid people defrauding the health care system globally, but since this one is one more brazen ones, we will give it two lines on our blog. If you want to read about how this British lad won Cornwall’s Strongest Man contest, including picking up a frigging car off the [...]

OSHA plays an important role in helping keep people safe. However, sometimes OSHA, both here in the United States as well as north of the border, can come across as clueless. Accidents happen. No matter how much regulation you put in place and bureaucratic paperwork, people are going to get hurt or even die. Last [...]

This short posting is for all of the reality TV fans out there. Tori Spelling appears to be a fraud. She has a “reality TV” show with her husband where she purchases a B&B with her life’s savings – and then tries to run it with a camera crew in tow. However, despite everything that [...]

Some people just don’t get it… even when it is going on all around them. Here is one example: Christian Deeb Rahaim, formerly a senior director of benefits for Enron’s HR department has been sentenced to 63 months in prison without possibility for parole. He has also been ordered to pay more than $2.9 million [...]

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, [...]

Elaine from the Sienfeld Show would be proud. According to media reports a Chicago woman has filed a lawsuit claiming “negligent dancing” by her boss’s husband and seeking damages for a fractured skull. In her complaint, Lacey Hindman says that David Prange picked her up and threw her during a jitterbug… saying that Prange grabbed [...]

Hungarians have had it with those Piresian immigrants. New poll results released by the Tarki polling company and published in the national daily newspaper, Nepszabadsag, yesterday showed that the majority of Hungarians would reject giving asylum to Piresians – despite the fact that the particular ethnic group doesn’t even exist. However, the Piresians shouldn’t feel [...]

Representing a terrific resource investment by the U.S. court system, a Tennessee Court of Appeals judge has decide to reinstate a lawsuit against Holland Medical Equipment in Nashville over hundreds of phones calls allegedly made in 1999. The lower courts has dismissed the case. The calls allegedly contained threats in an attempt to get back [...]

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 [...]

The federal government has decided to put its own secret Homeland Security hotline to the nation’s 50 governors on the federal do-not- call registry. The move came after a complaint from Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, who said that when her line rings it’s not an emergency, but rather it’s telemarketers. Minner keeps the secret [...]

VirginMega was fined for illegally downloading Madonna’s single “Hung Up” to resell on its own site. According to news reports, the VirginMega site “ignored an exclusive deal reached by Warner Music France with France Telecom and Orange” to sell the new Madonna song. VirginMega must now pay €250,000 (about $313,308) to each telecom firm, and [...]

A Pennsylvania couple who thought they were watching their epileptic dog being euthanized actually witnessed a simple sedation procedure concocted so the veterinary clinic could later give the canine to another owner. Now, the couple is suing the clinic that gave the dog a sedative to make it appear she was dead. The clinic then [...]

A group of Indian television journalists in Kolkata, India, allegedly gave a man matches and diesel to help him commit suicide in order to get dramatic footage that was later broadcast on the news. The man died from severe burns to his body in hospital. Footage of the man, screaming and writhing in pain as [...]