How Bad Behavior Caught Up With Australia’s Big Banks

A yearlong inquiry into misconduct in Australia’s financial industry uncovered a litany of scandals, including charging for services that were never provided, forging loan documents, lying to regulators and pushing customers into bad investments to meet bonus targets. The Royal Commission also described regulators as ineffective and urged them to toughen enforcement and curb the bonus culture that fueled decades of wrongdoing. It recommended the abolition of “money for nothing” commissions on loans and referred 24 cases of alleged bad behavior for possible legal action. However, it stopped short of mandating that “one-stop-shop” financial firms be broken up or that lending rules be tightened, actions that could have threatened bank profits.

So did banks get off the hook? read more »

Crypto Exchange Founder Filed Will 12 Days Before He Died

Gerald Cotten, the Canadian behind cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX, filed a will 12 days before his death listing substantial assets, according to court documents.

Cotten, whose sudden death left C$190 million ($145 million) in Bitcoin and other digital assets protected by his passwords unretrievable, signed his last will and testament on Nov. 27, 2018. He left all his assets to his wife, Jennifer Robertson, and made her the executor to his estate, the documents show.

Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Michael Wood granted Quadriga a 30-day stay on Tuesday in a bid to stop any lawsuits from proceeding against the company at this time, the Canadian Press reported. The Vancouver-based firm was also granted protection from creditors. read more »

Electronic Health Records Vendor to Pay $57.25 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

Greenway Health LLC (Greenway), a Tampa, Florida-based developer of electronic health records (EHR) software, will pay $57.25 million to resolve allegations in a complaint filed by the United States under the False Claims Act alleging  that Greenway caused its users to submit false claims to the government by misrepresenting the capabilities of its EHR product “Prime Suite” and providing unlawful remuneration to users to induce them to recommend Prime Suite, the Justice Department announced today. read more »

Renault to alert prosecutors over ex-CEO Ghosn's wedding costs

Renault has found evidence that it paid part of Carlos Ghosn’s wedding costs and is preparing to turn the investigation over to prosecutors, two weeks after the French carmaker’s scandal-hit chairman and chief executive was forced out. read more »