Dentons poaches top SFO lawyer in push to bolster investigations team January 5, 2023 Dentons has poached one of the Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO’s) top lawyers, as it pushes forwards with efforts to bolster its ranks with public sector hires. SFO deputy general counsel Rebecca Dix will take on a new position at Dentons’ London office, switching from the public sector crime agency to the fourth largest law firm [...]
Glencore to pay £147m over Democratic Republic of Congo corruption claims December 5, 2022 Glencore has agreed to pay $180m (£147m) to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to settle “all present and future” lawsuits arising from the large-scale international bribery scandal currently facing the firm. In a statement, Glencore said the $180m deal acts to settle any existing or future claims relating to the corruption allegations surrounding [...]
Our climate guilt is a weapon for fraudsters promising to help us help the environment November 25, 2022 Fraud moves with the times. This summer we experienced more sweltering heatwaves and droughts. Coupled with this month’s Cop27, climate change is again a regular feature in our daily news intake. While others saw a rise in phishing attempts and cost-of-living based scams, we’ve seen climate fraud cases grow exponentially, now involving millions of pounds [...]
Gupta’s UK steel business strikes nears deal with creditors to stave off bankruptcy November 15, 2022 The UK arm of Sanjeev Gupta’s steel empire has struck a preliminary deal with major creditors that could let it stave off insolvency proceedings by restructuring its debts. Liberty Steel Group has reached a preliminary agreement with Credit Suisse Asset Management, Greensill Capital, and Greensill Bank to restructure its debts, the steelmaker said in a [...]
Wood Group forks out £97m to settle historic litigation case November 14, 2022 John Wood Group and its energy subsidiary Amec Foster Wheeler Energy are to fork out $115m (£97.6m) to settle a legacy litigation case with US energy services provider Enterprise. All parties have agreed on the settlement fee, which will be paid in one instalment within the next week, Wood Group announced this morning. Enterprise filed [...]
Lisa Osofsky to step down as SFO director in August 2023 November 9, 2022 Lisa Osofsky is set to leave her position as director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in August 2023 after completing a five-year stint at the fraud investigation agency. Osofsky told staff she will serve her full tenure before leaving the agency, according to an internal message sent out by the SFO chief. In [...]
Glencore told to pay £281m over international bribery scandal November 3, 2022 A London judge today told a UK subsidiary of Glencore to pay a total sum of £281m over an international bribery scandal that saw its staff pay almost $29m (£25.6m) in bribes to officials in Africa. At a sentencing hearing today, Judge Peter Fraser said a “culture” of bribery was “endemic” within Glencore’s West Africa [...]
Glencore execs used private jets to fly cash bribes to Africa, court hears November 2, 2022 Glencore executives used private jets to fly millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Africa to boost their oil trading activities, a London Court heard today. Traders on Glencore’s London-based West Africa trading desk organised to have bribes, which were withdrawn from the commodity trader’s offices in Switzerland, flown to officials in Cameroon and [...]
Libor rigging special: Calls grow to review all convictions of City traders as ‘UK’s position is absurd’ October 31, 2022 A major City scandal that most bankers in London had left behind years ago seems to be coming back with a vengeance. In a new twist in one of the Square Mile’s biggest-ever scandals, the Libor rate-fixing case, British former trader Tom Hayes has had the long-running case against him in the United States thrown out. As [...]
Letters: Wake up and smell the fraud October 28, 2022 Protecting the public from the meteoric rise of fraud needs to be an absolute priority for the new government.