Briefcase
Ex-Siemens workers charged in $100 million bribery plot
NEW YORK – Eight former Siemens senior executives and agents were charged with plotting to pay $100 million in bribes to secure a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards for Argentine citizens, in a scam involving a “shocking level of deception and corruption,” an assistant U.S. attorney general said Tuesday.
An indictment returned late Monday in federal court in New York charged the defendants with conspiring together from 1996 to early 2007 when they worked for the German engineering company based in Munich.
A former member of the central executive committee of Siemens AG, Uriel Sharef, and two former chief executive officers of Siemens Argentina were among those charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the wire fraud statute, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with money laundering, conspiracy and wire fraud.
The charges against Sharef marked the first time a board member of a Fortune Global 50 company had been charged in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case. He was not in custody Tuesday. A message left with a lawyer who has represented him in the past was not immediately returned. None of the bribe recipients was named in the indictment and none of the defendants is in the United States.
Breuer said it was Justice Department policy not to name people who are not indicted and that the U.S. would work with other countries to bring the defendants to justice.
Associated Press
Former WaMu execs settle
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reached a settlement worth $64 million with three former executives who ran Washington Mutual, the largest bank to fail in U.S. history.
The settlement, which hasn’t been announced publicly yet, was made with the bank’s three top executives: former CEO Kerry Killinger, former chief operating officer Stephen Rotella and former chief of home loans David Schneider. The settlement amount of $64 million is mostly made up of the executives giving up claims to golden parachutes, bonuses and retirement funds, rather than cash that the executives have to pay.
It is also just a fraction of the $900 million the FDIC had sought to recover in a suit filed in March.
Washington Mutual was seized by federal regulators in September 2008 and immediately sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.88 billion.
The three executives were in charge of the bank when it wrote millions of subprime mortgages to borrowers who didn’t have the ability to repay the loans. When the real estate bubble burst, hundreds of its customers lost their homes to foreclosure. The bank reeled from losses and ultimately went under in 2008.
Killinger alone received more than $65 million in compensation from 2005 to 2008 for leading an institution that ultimately failed.
Associated Press
Morgan Stanley, MBIA settle
NEW YORK – Morgan Stanley said Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with insurance company MBIA Inc. over disputes involving mortgage-backed investments.
The agreement includes a cash payment of $1.1 billion from MBIA to Morgan Stanley, according to a person familiar with the settlement. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the payment. The two companies did not publicly disclose the amount of the payment.
Morgan Stanley had bought insurance protection from MBIA on commercial mortgage-backed securities it owns. After the settlement, the New York investment bank is writing down the value of the entire investment, which will result in a $1.8 billion pre-tax charge to its fourth quarter earnings.
MBIA provided insurance and sold guarantees on the bonds that were based on those faulty real estate loans.
Associated Press
Playboy operations head to LA
CHICAGO – Playboy is moving the bulk of its operations from its longtime home in Chicago to Los Angeles.
In a statement, Playboy said the magazine’s editorial, art and photo departments will be based out of its Los Angeles office starting in May.
The move is the latest news from the magazine that was founded in Chicago by Hugh Hefner in the early 1950s.
In recent years, as circulation has plummeted, the magazine has tried a number of gimmicks to attract readers, from its inclusion of 3-D glasses for viewing centerfold shots to turning the cover over to cartoon character Marge Simpson.
Associated Press