Panasonic to Pay $280 Million to End U.S. Corruption Probe

Company’s inflight-entertainment unit improperly hid payments
Allegations involve agents used in the Middle East, Asia

Panasonic Corp. will pay about $280 million to resolve U.S. allegations that executives at its in-flight-entertainment unit improperly hid payments to consultants in the Middle East and Asia, some of whom did little or no work for the company.

The Panasonic parent company, in a settlement announced Monday, will pay $143 million in disgorgement to the Securities and Exchange Commission, while Panasonic Avionics Corp. agreed to pay about $137 million in penalties to the Justice Department for violations of the accounting provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In addition, Panasonic Avionics, based in Lake Forest, Calif., entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement filed Monday alongside a criminal information in Washington federal court.

The settlement on Monday ranks among the largest corporate FCPA resolutions under the Trump administration. In September, Telia Company AB agreed to pay penalties of at least $965 million to U.S. and international authorities to resolve a long-running investigation into corrupt payments involving telecom contracts in Uzbekistan. read more »

Facebook Has Been Hit By Dozens of Data Lawsuits. And This Could Be Just the Beginning

Facebook has cleared two big hurdles as it tries to quell a controversy over user data: First, CEO Mark Zuckerberg came out of a Congressional grilling with flying colors, and then last week the company soothed shareholders by blowing its latest earnings report out of the water.

Despite this good news, Facebook still faces a third ordeal in the form of legal fallout from the Cambridge Analytica affair—which saw a rogue polling agency siphon and sell data from at least 87 million users. And that ordeal has barely begun.

A review of federal court documents shows that Facebook is facing more than three dozen class action lawsuits over Cambridge Analytica. The complaints seek damages on behalf of millions of consumers for alleged misuse of their data, or for investors who allegedly suffered losses when Facebook’s stock plummeted on news of the scandal.

While lawsuits are a matter of course for big companies, Facebook is treating the Cambridge Analytica cases as significant enough to make a special note of them in the company’s quarterly SEC report. A section titled “Legal Proceedings” had previously only cited ongoing litigation over Facebook’s botched 2012 IPO, but now includes the following paragraph... read more »

SEC Commissioner on Bitcoin: ‘That Space Is Full of Troubling Developments’

In a CNBC interview Monday morning, Jackson said his personal view on Bitcoin is that it’s a space “full of troubling developments.” He didn’t elaborate but said his concerns center more around initial coin offerings (ICOs), which are a mechanism for startups or online projects to raise money without selling stock or going to VCs.

“Investors are having a hard time telling the difference between investments and fraud,” he said.

The SEC has been cracking down on fraudulent ICOs in recent months. The agency has targeted ICOs they suspect are raising money for businesses that don’t even exist. It issued subpoenas to firms and individuals behind projects it believes are breaking the law.

“We’ve been doing a lot in the ICO space,” Jackson said. “[SEC] Chairman Jay Clayton has been very clear about this. He said he hasn’t seen an ICO yet that’s not a security. And I’m with him — I haven’t seen one of these yet that’s not a security.”

The cryptocurrency market is still in its “Wild West” phase as regulators try to figure out how to proceed. Clayton has previously said that the majority of ICOs should be registered with the agency because the coins trade on secondary markets like other securities the SEC regulates. read more »

Inquiry reveals seamy banking practices in Australia — like charging dead people for financial advice

For decades Australians have been assured that their ultra-profitable banking industry is safe, fair and ethical.

Now they’re dealing with revelations that some of the country’s most respected financial institutions have engaged in deception, practices driven by greed and possible fraud.

An inquiry conducted by a retired judge has uncovered examples of dead people being charged for financial advice, bank staff paying bribes for loan referrals and a top life insurance company repeatedly lying to regulators.

The Australian government, which launched the inquiry in December under intense political pressure, has said that some executives may go to jail. read more »