America's Libor Replacement Is Ready for Its Debut

Regulators around the globe began work on replacements for Libor, the London interbank offered rate, well before the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority set to put the beleaguered interest-rate benchmark out of its misery. In the U.S., enter the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, a new reference rate being introduced next week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in cooperation with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. The debut of SOFR is a critical step in a quest to wean more than $350 trillion of securities off Libor. read more »

VW boss says ‘risk of jail’ justifies mega salary

Germany: The head of German car giant Volkswagen, still grappling with the fallout from a huge emissions cheating scandal, on Friday defended his 10-million-euro salary by saying it made up for the risk of having “one foot in jail”.

In an interview with news weekly Der Spiegel, Matthias Mueller said he did not understand the fuss in Germany about chief executives’ pay packets.

“It’s an extremely emotional topic,” said Mueller, who took home just over 10 million euros ($12.3 million) in 2017, up 40 percent on the previous year. read more »

The Former Khmer Rouge Slave Who Blew the Whistle on Wells Fargo

After Duke Tran escaped from slavery, but before he became a millionaire, he was a Wells Fargo employee.

He worked at the bank’s debt-collections center near Portland, Ore., talking on the phone to customers who owed Wells Fargo money. It wasn’t glamorous, but the job enabled him to afford a two-story suburban house with mustard-colored aluminum siding. After more than three decades in the United States, Mr. Tran felt that he was the living embodiment of the American dream.

And then it all started to crumble. read more »

Facebook shares tumble as U.S. regulator announces privacy probe

Shares of Facebook Inc fell more than 5 percent on Monday after the U.S. consumer protection regulator made public its investigation of how the social network allowed data of 50 million users to get into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which generally confirms the existence of an investigation only in cases of significant public interest, adds to pressure by lawmakers in the United States and Europe for Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to explain how his company handles user data. read more »

Fed's Dudley Says Bank Executives Should Share the Cost of Fines

Wall Street executives’ pay can be changed to discourage bad behavior by forcing managers to share penalties against their banks and by using long-term debt as part of their deferred compensation, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said Monday.

Sharing in a bank’s costs for regulatory fines and other legal penalties could put more pressure on senior managers to prevent missteps in the first place, Dudley said in remarks prepared for a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event in Washington.

“I suspect changes in these areas would lead senior managers to encourage their staff to speak up earlier about emerging risks, be more attentive when red flags were raised, and respond sooner and more forcefully,” said Dudley read more »

Skilled nursing providers, billing consultants pay $6M to resolve whistleblower allegations

The United States alleged that during the period January 1, 2010 through January 31, 2014 the defendants billed Medicare for skilled therapy services that were either not delivered or that were medically unnecessary.

The civil settlement resolves a lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which permits private parties to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and obtain a portion of the government's recovery. read more »

Kinross Gold settles charges over anti-corruption rules: SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Canadian-based mining company Kinross Gold agreed to pay $950,000 to settle civil charges that it failed to ensure its payments in Africa were not being used to bribe government officials.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compels companies to maintain book keeping practices aimed at preventing bribery. read more »