How a Chauffeur Could Bring Down Argentina’s Political Elite

A chauffeur’s notes could send dozens of Argentina’s political and business elites to prison. On Aug. 1, Argentine newspaper La Nacion published an investigation that detailed alleged bribes from business executives to officials in the former governments of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner. Evidence in the eight notebooks, kept from 2005 to 2015 by the chauffeur of a former government official, have led to the arrests of more than a dozen men. And Kirchner could be next.

Oscar Centeno, the driver for former planning secretary Roberto Baratta, kept meticulous notes for 10 years with details of bribes that he delivered. His notebooks include names, amounts, addresses and dates, including bribes allegedly delivered to Kirchner’s homes in Buenos Aires. It’s not known why Centeno kept the records. The notebooks chronicled about $53 million in bribes.

Centeno gave the notebooks to a friend when his former boss, Baratta, was about to go to jail last year on separate charges. And the friend decided on his own in January to give copies of them to La Nacion journalist Diego Cabot, who led the investigation. After the news report came out, Centeno said he burned the notebooks on his grill. read more »

Wells Fargo Tests Investor Patience With New Scandal Details

Wells Fargo & Co. investors who were learning to live with an unprecedented penalty the Federal Reserve imposed for bad behavior will have their patience tested again as details emerge on another scandal.

The bank disclosed earlier this month that it faces a U.S. inquiry into its purchase of low-income housing credits. Late Friday, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Stephen Gandel reported that the Justice Department is looking into whether Wells Fargo and other banks colluded with developers on bids for the tax credits.

“This clearly does not seem like they are ready to move on from the challenges that the Fed is watching them for,” Stephen Beck, founder of management consultancy cg42, said Sunday in a telephone interview.

Investors had been taking comfort from Wells Fargo’s statements that the Fed penalty -- a cap on growth until regulators decide it has fixed its missteps -- was having a smaller impact than first expected. In June, the bank announced a big increase in dividends and stock buybacks, and the stock jumped about 6 percent in the past three months. It fell 0.9 percent in early trading Monday.

Now shareholders will have to decide if the latest disclosures mean they have to rethink that more optimistic view. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami convened a grand jury to look into the accusations against Wells Fargo, according to Gandel, who cited a person close to the investigation. Subpoenas have been issued to Wells Fargo and developers who have done the deals with the bank.

The disclosures add to almost two years of revelations about probes, misconduct and other lapses that have taken a toll on the firm’s reputation, business and relations with regulators. read more »

The SEC Is Intensifying Its Probe of Tesla: Report

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is intensifying its scrutiny of Tesla Inc.’s public statements in the wake of Elon Musk’s provocative tweet Tuesday about taking the electric-car company private, according to two people familiar with the matter.

SEC enforcement attorneys in the San Francisco office were already gathering general information about Tesla’s public pronouncements on manufacturing goals and sales targets, according to the people who asked not to be named because the review is private.

Now, attorneys from that office are also examining whether Musk’s tweet about having funding secured to buy out the company was meant to be factual, according to one of the people.

The SEC inquiry is preliminary and won’t necessarily lead to anything more formal. Tesla, which hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Judith Burns, an SEC spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The scrutiny adds to pressure on Musk, who has a history of setting sales targets that bulls consider to be aggressive and bears contend are unrealistic. The question for regulators is whether any of his public statements or the company’s run afoul of federal securities laws. Generally, the SEC considers statements by executives to be material information that have to be true. read more »