Tag: Corporate Crime

America

Allen Weisselberg jailed for 5 months

Trump Organisation’s former chief financial officer turned star prosecution witness Allen Weisselberg.

Corporate Crime, Corporate Punishment. If only Al Capone was incorporated like Trump. Bet Madhoff wished he was a corporation he wouldn’t have got 150 years.

Weisselberg faced the prospect of up to 15 years in prison – the maximum punishment for the top grand larceny charge – if he were to have reneged on the deal or if he didn’t testify truthfully at the Trump Organisation’s trial. He is the only person charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.

Source: Allen Weisselberg jailed for 5 months

TAX

Rio Tinto settles $1b tax bill: ATO – Michael West

Multinational mining giant Rio Tinto has settled a decade-long tax dispute with the Australian Taxation Office, handing over almost $1 billion in unpaid taxes after an investigation of its Singapore marketing hub.

The settlement is one of the largest in Australian tax history, with the mining giant paying about $1 billion over and above its original tax filings, following in the path of other multinationals forced to pay up.

The company will pay an additional $613 million for unpaid tax between 2010 and 2021, on top of $378 million it has paid back on amended assessments issued by the ATO, including interest and penalties.

The miner was investigated by the ATO’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce for using Singapore as a marketing hub of products, including aluminium and iron ore, to reduce Australian tax bills in a practice known as transfer pricing. ATO

Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Saint said importantly the settlement locks in future tax flows to Australia going forward.

Source: Rio Tinto settles $1b tax bill: ATO – Michael West

Informed Comment, LNP, LNP Corruption, LNP Government

Crown v Shannon: bigwigs off the hook, small fish fried – Michael West Media

ASIC, Crown Resorts

This isn’t splashed across the front pages of our MSM why? It certainly however indicates their right-wing, top-down propaganda bias. Morrison’s promised ICAC has been discarded and a stained promise remains. Australia’s international corruption index has blown out and the pigs are ripping the guts out of everything that remains. Super and wage theft have been gouged, while workers and their families have lost billions. $8 companies were given contracts that now values them at $340M. Mates have jobs doing sweet FA and earn $600K and grants well we saw the grants they came and went in some cases like Bridget McKenzie.

Nine years ago we were voted best economy on the planet and our Treasurer then voted the world’s best and we had just faced the GFC and won governed by the Gillard ALP. Bills were passedbut then along came 9 years of listening to “nope nope nope” of LNP government with Frydenberg still telling us we are the worlds best economy when the world says we are not.

Our privately owned MSM Murdoch the largest is proving to be the Australian equivalent of Russian State Media a propaganda machine loved by Putin. It might well be criticizing Scott Morrison but it sure as hell isn’t criticizing the L-NP for dragging this country down economically or reputationally on every social metric. They are after all the worlds best promisers who do nothing and when and if they do it’s so late its a useless token gesture. Yes Morrison promises to make the NBN the best in the world and liberate Christians from discrimination. What criticism there is in our MSM, is minimal and isn’t calling for a necessary change of government. Quite the opposite in fact, they are still branded the best economic managers by corporate Australia while government debt blew out to almost $1Tr and filled the pockets of their donors. The truth is staring us in the face. Are we better off under a Morrison/LNP than we were under a Gillard lead ALP?  Is our material Economy, Health, Education, Wealth, Housing and Welfare better? Have Corruption, Broken Promises, Discrimination, Racism, and Climate action improved? Let’s be the honest judges and not simply accept the word of the worlds worst salesman!

One guy prosecuted for allegedly running a company while bankrupt, ten Crown directors off scot free for washing $70bn through casinos for Chinese Triads, drug and sex traffickers and other assorted criminals. One rule for rich and powerful, another for the rest. Michael West reports on the world of deluxe double standards.

Source: Crown v Shannon: bigwigs off the hook, small fish fried – Michael West Media

Murdoch Media

Fox News attacks Sesame Street for promoting vaccines — while the network practices vaccine mandates internally | Media Matters for America

screen grab

Fox News has joined the right-wing attack against Sesame Street over a TV special that ran Saturday morning on CNN to help answer kids and parents’ questions about getting vaccinated against COVID-19, which the CDC now recommends for children aged 5-11. Fox’s attacks have just served to highlight the network’s own ongoing hypocrisy — practicing safe pandemic policies internally while urging its audience to resist those measures as part of a destructive culture war.

Source: Fox News attacks Sesame Street for promoting vaccines — while the network practices vaccine mandates internally | Media Matters for America

Capitalism

‘Catastrophic Injustice’: Judge OKs Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Plan Shielding Sacklers | Common Dreams News

purdue

“The greed of some Sacklers fueled an opioid epidemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans,” said Rick Claypool of Public Citizen.

Source: ‘Catastrophic Injustice’: Judge OKs Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Plan Shielding Sacklers | Common Dreams News

Corporate Government, Corporate Greed, corporate impunity, corporate subsidies, Corporate Welfare

‘Unjustly enriched’: Mounting calls for corporate Australia to repay JobKeeper as profits recover
Automotive company Toyota was the first major corporate to announce it would repay JobKeeper.
Scott Morrison thought good governance was to pay the coroporations they never commit fraud

Corporate governance experts are urging more of Australia’s big companies to repay funds received through the federal government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, warning taxpayers will bear the brunt of the $90 billion cost for decades.

‘Unjustly enriched’: Mounting calls for corporate Australia to repay JobKeeper as profits recover
Trump, Uncategorized

A Huge Wall Street Scandal Just Exploded In Kentucky

The suit alleges that the firms misled the state into funneling retirees’ money into investments that were “secretive, opaque, illiquid, impossible to properly monitor or accurately value, high-fee, high-risk gambles with no historical record of performance.” The suit asserts that these were “absolutely unsuitable investments for a pension fund in the particular situation [Kentucky] was in, and violated the applicable laws, codes and standards.”

via A Huge Wall Street Scandal Just Exploded In Kentucky

Corporation welfare, Uncategorized

Defund the CEOs | The Smirking Chimp

In 2018, 50 major U.S. corporations paid their top execs over 1,000 times what they paid their most typical workers.

We could do bolder still. We could deny government contracts and subsidies to corporations with wide gaps between executive and worker pay. Our tax dollars should not subsidize — in any way — the exploitation of working people.

Or as an excellent New York Times analysis has just put it: “For the voices of workers to be heard, the influence of the wealthy must be curbed.”

via Defund the CEOs | The Smirking Chimp

Australian Politics, Uncategorized

Lendlease tax boondoggle bigger than the hole it left in Sydney Football Stadium – Michael West

Lendlease tax boondoggle bigger than the hole it left in Sydney Football Stadium

Lendlease walked away from its contract to rebuild the Sydney Football Stadium in July, leaving a giant hole in the ground and a state government scrambling to fill the construction void. The contract was worth $729 million but, in a retirement villages tax rort, the company has claimed far more than $729 million. Michael West reports on how Lendlease plays fast and loose with taxpayers.

via Lendlease tax boondoggle bigger than the hole it left in Sydney Football Stadium – Michael West

LNP Corruption, Uncategorized

Government corruption and the need for a Federal ICAC

Paladin corruption allegations;
Royal Commission findings on banks;
no charges laid over questionable tip-offs on AFP’s union raid from Michaelia Cash’s office; and
Northern Territory’s public service corruption charges.

via Government corruption and the need for a Federal ICAC

White Collar Crime

Financial sector slow to clean up its act despite royal commission revelations – Business – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Former NAB superannuation chair Nicole Smith looks down walking outside court

The man running the banking royal commission, Kenneth Hayne, certainly comprehended what was going on when he questioned the head of the trustee responsible for NAB’s superannuation funds.

“Did you think yourself that taking money to which there was no entitlement raised a question of the criminal law?’ he asked.

“I didn’t,” responded Nicole Smith.

Ms Smith’s answer says a lot about the culture of Australian banking, where it seems that profit at any cost is king.

via Financial sector slow to clean up its act despite royal commission revelations – Business – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Uncategorized

Catholic Church ‘hiding behind the law’ over historic abuse compensation claims – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A man who was raped and beaten by priests and brothers as a 12-year-old says he felt like a beggar when he asked the Catholic Church for money to pay for medical bills for treatment of the mental and physical illness he suffered as a result of his abuse.Russell Clark is just one of many survivors of abuse who signed deeds of release, which prevent them from taking further legal action or requesting more compensation.

Source: Catholic Church ‘hiding behind the law’ over historic abuse compensation claims – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

ATO

ATO’s tax gap figures revealed: $2.5 billion missing from corporates, multinationals

In the 2014-15 year there was a huge $3 billion variance between tax bills initially issued by the ATO to 81 large companies, and the money the agency ended up pocketing after it cut deals with these companies.

Source: ATO’s tax gap figures revealed: $2.5 billion missing from corporates, multinationals

Climate Change

The Criminals who amplified Harvey: Trump & Cabinet must Resign

This is not an administration, it is a rogues gallery of environmental criminals.Want to know why we’re having a once in a 500 years storm and flood in Texas?Because of Trump and his buddies on the cabinet. They are creating a situation where Hurricane Harvey becomes the new normal.They should resign.

Source: The Criminals who amplified Harvey: Trump & Cabinet must Resign

NBN

55 workers sacked by Telstra NBN provider | CEPU – The Communications Union

Mr Murphy said the sackings are the result of the failed, sham pyramid contracting scheme employed by Telstra and their contracting partners.“The Federal Government and NBN Co are turning a blind eye to these dodgy employment set-ups. This company has been the subject of a number of worker complaints including the failure to provide adequate training, unlawful withholding of overtime payments and unfair dismissals. NBN Co and the Federal Government know the way their contractors are operating, but they don’t seem to care. They’ve got a lot to answer for.

Source: 55 workers sacked by Telstra NBN provider | CEPU – The Communications Union

Informed Comment

Crime and terror in the banks | The Saturday Paper

The Saturday Paper logo

Tabcorp was fined $45 million in March for breaching money laundering laws 108 times over five years. AUSTRAC boasted at the time that the ruling was the largest civil penalty in Australian corporate history. Applying the same standard to the 53,760 breaches Commonwealth Bank is accused of would see it staring down the barrel of a $22 billion penalty.

Source: Crime and terror in the banks | The Saturday Paper

Coal

Adani fined for dumping coal-laden stormwater into sea at Abbot Point | Business | The Guardian

Dumped water containing over eight times the permitted amount of sediment was released by family-linked company during Cyclone Debbie in March

Source: Adani fined for dumping coal-laden stormwater into sea at Abbot Point | Business | The Guardian

Banks

Commonwealth Bank in damage control over anti-money laundering allegations – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Commonwealth Bank is locked in the early stages of damage control as it confronts allegations it allegedly breached anti-money laundering rules.

Source: Commonwealth Bank in damage control over anti-money laundering allegations – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Healthcare

If you have regular pathology tests, here is something you should know – » The Australian Independent Media Network

A little back story may be appropriate. In February 2015 I looked at Medicare. It was noticeable that pathology services constituted a large percentage of the total services. I doubt the proportion has dropped since. I contribute to that proportion: I have auto-immune conditions. I spend considerable time and money ensuring they are kept under control.…

Source: If you have regular pathology tests, here is something you should know – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Money

Suspected Chinese-Australian money launderer gambled ‘astronomical’ $850m at Crown Casino

The wife of a suspected Chinese-Australian money launderer who allegedly turned over more than $850 million at Crown Casino has failed in her bid to access a Californian luxury home held under proceeds of crime laws.

Source: Suspected Chinese-Australian money launderer gambled ‘astronomical’ $850m at Crown Casino

Banking

Wells Fargo caught creating ‘ghost’ accounts to steal millions from customers

Wells Fargo, one of the world’s biggest banks, just got caught in an elaborate scheme charging customers for bank accounts they never signed up for.

Source: Wells Fargo caught creating ‘ghost’ accounts to steal millions from customers