DOJ is investigating whether Uber broke the law against foreign bribery

Uber just picked a new chief executive, but the tide of bad news facing the Silicon Valley transportation company isn’t letting up.

The company confirmed Tuesday that the Department of Justice is probing whether managers broke U.S. laws prohibiting bribery of officials in foreign countries.

Uber is cooperating with the investigation, a spokesman Matt Kallman said. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. read more »

Wells Fargo Boosts Fake-Account Estimate 67% to 3.5M

Wells Fargo & Co. raised its estimate for how many bogus accounts employees may have created, a sign the bank is still struggling to move past a scandal that sparked record fines and congressional investigations.

An outside review into more than 165 million deposit and credit-card accounts found an additional 1.4 million that were potentially unauthorized, bringing the total to about 3.5 million, according to a statement Thursday from the San Francisco-based firm. The revised estimate covers January 2009 to September 2016, almost twice as long as the period examined in the initial review.

The disclosure of even more fraudulent accounts threatens to catapult Wells Fargo back into the political crosshairs just as Congress returns Sept. 5 from its summer recess. The scandal came to light almost a year ago after regulators slapped Wells Fargo with fines of $185 million over its sales practices, prompting congressional hearings and resulting in the bank naming new leaders, clawing back executives’ pay and beginning an overhaul of its retail division. read more »

Sinopec Probed by the U.S. Over Nigeria Payments

U.S. authorities are investigating China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. over allegations that the state-controlled oil producer paid Nigerian officials about $100 million worth of bribes to resolve a business dispute, according to people familiar with the probe.

Investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department are looking into allegations that outside lawyers acting as middlemen for the company, known as Sinopec, funneled illicit payments from its Swiss unit to the Nigerians through banks in New York and California, said the two people, who didn’t want to be named discussing an active investigation.

The U.S. probes are in their early stages, and no action is imminent, one of the people said. The SEC is handling its inquiry through its Los Angeles office, and the Justice Department investigation is being led by the U.S. attorney’s office in that city, the person said. At least one Washington-based prosecutor from the Justice Department unit that investigates potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has traveled to Los Angeles to conduct interviews, the people said. read more »

Russian Bombardier employee pleads not guilty to aggravated bribery

A Russian employee in the Swedish branch of Canadian plane and train maker Bombardier has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated bribery.

If found guilty, Evgeny Pavlov, an employee of Bombardier Transportation Sweden AB in Azerbaijan, could face a six-year jail sentence and deportation.

Pavlov has been accused of bribery to win a contract for a signalling system with a contract value of around $340 million.