News Archive: May - September 2008

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• Sept. 30 – Top CIA Official Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the former top official in the CIA, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for steering contracts to a friend and a high-level CIA job he got for his mistress, The Washington Post reported.  Foggo faces up to 20 years in prison.
  
  
• Sept. 30 - Wal-Mart Takes Strong Action to Clean Up Its Supply Chain.  Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said it was asking its suppliers to stop using cotton from Uzbekistan, joining a boycott by global brands over its use of forced child labor during the cotton harvest, the Financial Times reported.  It is the first time the retailer has taken such sweeping action over sourcing issues, reflecting its push over the past three years to improve its record on social and environmental sustainability under Lee Scott, its chief executive.
  
  
• Sept. 29 – U.S. Investigates Possible Governance Lapses at Freddie Mac.  Freddie Mac said it had received a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, seeking documents relating to accounting, disclosure and corporate governance matters, MarketWatch reported.  It also said it had received notice that it is the subject of a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission, directing it to preserve documents.
  
  
• Sept. 29 – Nigerian Courts Begin Probe of Bribery in Oil Industry.  Nigerian courts will begin an investigation of senior government officials implicated by a U.S. oil executive who has pleaded guilty to bribery, Leadership Nigeria reported.  Jason Steph, a former senior executive of Houston-based Willbros Group Inc., pleaded guilty to paying $6 million in bribes to a senior member of the Nigerian government. The Willbros case is the latest in a string of bribery allegations involving foreign companies and Nigerian officials, which campaigners say point to endemic corruption in Africa's largest energy industry.  No Nigerian official has been prosecuted as a result of the cases.
  
  
• Sept. 26 – Countries Pledge $6.1B to Investment Funds to Promote Environmental Sustainability.  Industrialized countries pledged more than $6.1 billion to international investment funds aimed at helping developing countries adopt cleaner technologies and mitigate growth in greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reported.  Two trust funds are also being created under the Climate Investment Funds, which will be administered by the World Bank and by multilateral development banks.
  
  
• Sept. 26 - $3B Pledged to Fight Malaria at UN Summit.  At a United Nations Summit in New York City, world leaders and philanthropists have pledged to give $3 billion dollars to fight malaria, one of the targets set as part of the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty by 2015, BBC News reported.  The deal illustrates a significant partnership between both public and private entities to solve a problem that has vexed world leaders for decades.
  
  
• Sept. 25 – Cameroon to Join EITI Initiative.  Cameroon's government said it will subject its mining industry to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an accord that aims to limit corruption, Bloomberg reported.  The EITI Technical Secretariat in Cameroon's Finance Ministry assured that reports from the industry will be made accessible to the general public.
  
  
• Sept. 24 – Global Witness Claims Congolese Government Hindering Transparency.  A group of international NGO’s warned that millions of acres of rainforest could be at risk as the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo considers whether to legalize more than 150 timber felling contracts, according to a press release from Global Witness, an organization committed to ending resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses.  Intended to introduce accountability and transparency into the forest sector, the review, carried out by the Congolese government, will decide which of the 156 logging contracts under review should be converted into legal logging concessions. However, many NGOs claim that the process has been shrouded in secrecy.
  
  
• Sept. 24 - Pfizer and Grameen Bank Team Up on Access to Health Care Initiative.  Pfizer Inc and Grameen Health, an affiliate of Grameen Bank, the pioneering micro-financing organization in Bangladesh will jointly evaluate ways to improve Grameen Health’s existing healthcare delivery systems to provide adequate health care to four billion people around the world whose annual income is less than $3,000, according to a Pfizer press release. 
  
  
• Sept. 24 - Three Trade Ministers in Iraq Forced Out for Corruption.  The Iraqi cabinet announced that it had forced out three high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Trade as part an anticorruption plan, the New York Times reported.  The Trade Ministry controls some of the most visible commodities in Iraq and operates a $5.3 billion program.  The U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, estimated in late 2006 that as much as $4 billion annually, roughly 10 percent of Iraq’s national income, was being lost to corruption.
  
  
• Sept. 23 - Ethos Investment Fund Fights for Say on Pay in Switzerland.  The Swiss-based responsible investment fund Ethos has filed a shareholder resolution at five multinational corporations with Swiss operations calling for a “say on pay,” according to an Ethos press release.  Ethos said in most cases, variable pay is not determined by adequate performance criteria and recent events have demonstrated that a bad remuneration structure can have very negative consequences on the company's strategy.  Among the main stock markets, Switzerland is the only country in which the legislation does not provide shareholders with any right to express their opinion on executive remuneration.
  
  
• Sept. 23 - AIG Top Executive Turns Down $22M Severance Package.  As Congress considers a $700 billion banking bailout, top executive pay restrictions are a key issue.  ABC News reports that Robert Willumstad, who was forced out of the top position at finance giant AIG while the US government agreed an $85 billion bailout, has announced that he will not take any severance pay.  Williamstud, who only became AIG’s Chairman and CEO three months ago, could have taken $22 million under his contract.
  
  
• Sept. 23 - UK Claims First Victim Under Tougher Anti-Bribery Laws.  A Ugandan government official, Ananias Tumukunde, who received bribes from a British company director became the first person to be convicted of overseas corruption since Britain tightened up its anti-bribery laws, The Guardian reported.  Niels Tobiasen, the managing director of a UK firm, has pleaded guilty to paying £80,000 in bribes and is due to be sentenced on Friday.
  
  
• Sept. 22 – Carbon Disclosure Project Says Emissions Reporting Still High.  In its latest survey of Global 500 companies, The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) states a background of regulatory uncertainty has, for many companies, translated into a ‘wait and see’ policy which, in turn, has served to delay strategic investment decisions regarding climate change strategy and greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, according to the Project’s press release.  74% of Global 500 companies reporting to CDP are now reporting emissions reduction targets - the Utilities sector was the most transparent in their reporting, with a 93% response rate, and the Oil and Gas sector performed relatively poorly, with a response rate of just 69%.
  
  
• Sept. 22 - CEO of Second Largest Wireless Company Caught in Bribery Probe.  Prosecutors yesterday moved for arraignment of KTF CEO Cho Young-ju as part of the probe into the bribery scandal involving the country’s second-largest wireless carrier, reported Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo.  In addition to bribery charges, authorities are investigating if KTF employees pulled strings in the selection of suppliers or manipulated financial records to raise slush funds.
  
  
• Sept. 21 - Mexican Government Tests Pilot Program to Curb Corruption in Police Force.  Officers and prison guards in the Michoacan state of Mexico can now get special deals on houses and financing through a pilot program designed to keep them out of the pockets of organized crime, the Associated Press reported. The strategy is part of Mexico's desperate push to professionalize local law enforcement, infamous for extorting bribes at bogus traffic stops and providing security for drug lords.
  
  
• Sept. 19 - Congress Hears Pledges of Reforms Inside U.S. Interior Dept. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a Congressional hearing that he is considering firing eight employees still at the Minerals Management Service, the embattled division of the U.S. Dept of the Interior, putting in place a random drug-testing program and banning all employees in that division from receiving gifts and gratuities, The Associated Press reported. Shell, one of the oil companies named in the Inspector General report who did business with these employees, said it was starting an internal investigation to ensure its employees were following the appropriate guidelines.
  
  
• Sept. 18 – Georgia’s President Comments on Plan for Aid Money.  President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has announced contracts arising from almost $2 billion in aid granted by the US and European Union would use the international donations wisely to “re-ignite the economy,” the Financial Times reported.  Mr Saakashvili said the Georgian opposition and the country’s civil society had been invited to participate in “an anti-crisis council”, overseeing the allocation of foreign aid.  Concerns have been raised, most notably by Transparency International-Georgia, that the aid package is not transparent and contains the risk of corruption.
  
  
• Sept. 18 - Rwanda First To Have More Women Than Men in Government.  Rwanda is set to become the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, The Financial Times reported.  Their numbers reflect the effect of government initiatives put in place since the genocide to encourage women to enter politics and the fact that 24 seats in the 80-seat parliament are designated specifically for them.
  
  
• Sept. 18 - Corporate Library Chair Blames Board for Financial Crisis.  Nell Minow, editor and chair of The Corporate Library, an independent research company specializing in corporate governance, has written in a special commentary for CNN arguing that the people who are most responsible for the massive meltdowns of these financial institutions are the boards of directors.  She notes that directors “not only failed to perform this task but indeed, in their approval of outrageous pay plans with perverse incentives, they all but guaranteed the current disaster.”
  
  
• Sept. 18 - Indonesia’s Anti-Trust Agency Under Fire Over Bribery Allegations.  The credibility of Indonesia's anti-trust agency, launched eight years ago, has been thrown into question by an unfolding bribery scandal, Reuters reported.  Mohammad Iqbal, an official at the anti-trust body, is now a suspect in a case involving broadcast rights after being caught receiving 500 million rupiah ($53,160) from a businessman at a luxury hotel.
  
  
• Sept. 17 - Need a Job? $17,000 an Hour. No Success Required.  This is the headline of a New York Times opinion article lambasting Richard Fuld, the longtime chief of the now collapsed Lehman Brothers for the $45 million he earned last year, which amounts to roughly $17,000 an hour.
  
  
• Sept. 17 - Investigation Begins for U.S. Judge Which Could Mean Impeachment.  The U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted to open the first impeachment probe of a sitting judge in almost two decades, The Wall Street Journal reported.  U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous, a Louisiana jurist, is charged with presiding over a trial in which the lawyers involved had given him money. He's also accused of filing for bankruptcy under a false name.
  
  
• Sept. 17 - Prosecutors Throw Out Zuma Court Ruling.  South African state prosecutors say they will appeal against last week's ruling dismissing corruption charges against South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, BBC News reported.  There is still debate within the country as to whether the corruption allegations are politically motivated. 
  
  
• Sept. 17 – Woman Pleads Guilty To Biggest Tax Scam in D.C. History.  An employee of Washington D.C. city’s tax office pleaded guilty to stealing, along with co-conspirators, $48.1 million which went unnoticed for over 20 years, The Washington Post reported.  Harriette M. Walters learned how to steal in the mid-1980s from co-workers. They took cash and gifts from property owners in return for erasing penalties on overdue taxes, stole refund checks issued to deceased taxpayers and created phony property tax refunds with little effort or worry.  She could face 15 to 18 years in prison.
  
  
• Sept. 16 - Italy Worst in EU on Tax Evasion.  New data shows that Italy has the largest percentage of tax evasion in all the European Union countries, followed closely by Romania and Bulgaria, The Sofia News Agency reported.  It is estimated that 23% of Italy’s gross domestic product is lost to tax evasion.
  
  
• Sept. 15 - Top American Companies Fall Short on Environmental Online Reporting, Some Say. Researchers at an American university claim Fortune 50 companies are not taking full advantage of online tools to enhance their environmental reporting, GreenBiz.com reported.  According to a report, “Most reporting is static and one-way.”  Only 38 percent offered evidence of stakeholder involvement in the development of the reports and most environmentally reporting was two to three mouse clicks away from the home page. 
  
  
• Sept. 15 - UN Resolution on Industry Transparency Recognizes EITI as Leader.  The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution on the subject of “Strengthening Transparency in Industries,” giving strong backing to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), according to an EITI press release.  Commenting on the resolution Dr Peter Eigen, Chairman of the EITI, said "The recognition of the EITI in an UN resolution marks a major milestone in our efforts to promote the EITI as the international standard for transparency in the extractive sector.”
  
  
• Sept. 15 - Bangladesh’s Slow Progress in Fighting Graft Blamed on ‘Lack of Expertise.’ In country observers claim the lack of progress in Bangladesh to clean up corruption is due to “sloppy legal work and lack of expertise,” AFP reported.  Dozens have been arrested on corruption-related charges, but few cases end in conviction.  One Oxford-trained professor notes “"They enacted the emergency power laws and the anti-corruption laws in haste. But there were lapses in the laws and technicalities which made it easier for the top suspects to get out of custody.”
  
  
• Sept. 13 – Alstom Bribes Could Top $500M, Prosecutors Say.  Swiss prosecutors pursuing an international bribery probe of Alstom SA say new evidence suggests the French engineering giant spent at least tens of millions of dollars more than previously suspected on illicit payments to win contracts abroad, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The investigation illustrates the tougher line European prosecutors are taking against practices multinationals have long employed to win government contracts abroad.
  
  
• Sept. 12 - Uzbek President Supports Law to Strengthen Labor Rights.  The President of Uzbekistan signed a new law that will provide more fair and secure work conditions, protection of labor rights and the health of employees, the Central Asian News Service reported. 
  
  
• Sept. 12 - Zuma Corruption Case Dismissed.  A South African court ruled that the decision to prosecute Jacob Zuma, the South African ruling party leader, on charges of corruption was invalid, reported the Independent Online.  Stressing that it was not a judgment on his guilt or innocence, the judge said Zuma's claims that there were political undercurrents in his prosecution were not completely unbelievable.
  
  
• Sept. 12 - Fashion Industry Gets Poor Marks on Labor Policy.  The British anti-sweatshop coalition called “Labour Behind the Label” produced a report saying no brand surveyed is paying its workers a living wage, despite some being members of the Ethical Trading Initiative, the Guardian reported.  Out of nearly 30 retailers or groups of stores, only Gap and Monsoon Accessorize have clear plans to move beyond pilot projects, the report says.
  
  
• Sept. 11 - Beset by Corruption, Cocoa Industry to Begin Reforms.  Ivory Coast will replace all bodies administering its key cocoa sector by September 15 with a temporary body, Reuters reported, in an effort to institute widespread reforms meant to counter mass corruption that has erupted in the sector.  A government official gave no details on the likely form of the new administrative body, but said it would mean lower taxes on cocoa, and greater transparency.
  
  
• Sept. 11 - Rampant Corruption at oil and gas division of US Department of Interior - Three detailed reports on abuse by government employees have been filed by the U.S. Inspector General (IG) of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Earl E. Devaney. In his cover letter to the reports into the department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) division, specifically its Royalty in Kind (RIK) branch located in Denver, Colorado, he describes a pervasive “unethical culture” and “unbridled and unethical conduct.”
  
  The investigations involved interviews with 233 people and the review of 470,000 pages of documents and e-mails. He noted that a reason for the length of the investigations was "primarily due the criminal nature of some of the allegations, protracted discussions with the DOJ (Department of Justice) and the ultimate refusal of one major oil company Chevron to cooperate with our investigation."  RIK is involved in tens of billions of dollars worth of royalties payable by oil and gas companies drilling on government-owned lands.
  
  The IG noted that the actions of the government employees "included effectively opting themselves out of the Ethics in Government Act." He goes on to state that, "More specifically, we discovered that between 2002 and 2006 nearly 1/3 of the entire RIK staff socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies with whom RIK was conducting official business."
  
  The ethical abuses, from sexual relationships between government employees and oil and gas industry executives, job offers by the industry to government employees with whom they were negotiating contracts, drug abuse, acceptance of gifts and holidays from oil and gas firms, and bribes in a few cases. Criminal prosecutions are underway.
  
  
• Sept. 10 – UK Gives $3.5M Grant to Corruption Fighting Organization. The UK Government’s Department of International Development (DFID) has awarded the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF) a £2 million (US$ 3.55 million) grant to fund a significant expansion of its anti-corruption program. PTF’s Chair Kumi Naidoo said “This UK grant provides secure funding to PTF for a five year period. It recognizes the outstanding pioneering work that PTF has done to support anti-corruption projects by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.”
  
  
• Sept. 10 - U.S. Senators Take Tough Stance to Defend Corporate Whistleblowers.  Two U.S. Senators are vigorously protesting against the Department of Labor’s strict interpretation of a whistleblower protection law, where the department asserts the law excludes employees of the subsidiaries of publicly traded companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The senators asked the department to supply documentation and a response supporting the agency's position -- and until that time, to suspend its interpretation that exempts employees of subsidiaries.
  
  
• Sept. 9 - Debate Swirls over Severance for Former CEOs of U.S. Mortgage Lending Giants.  U.S. congressmen expressed concern that former CEOs of now collapsed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could receive their bonuses, “at a time when taxpayer dollars may have to be deployed to cover any financial losses caused by errors in management,” Bloomberg reported.  Former CEO Richard Syron, 64, might receive $12 million to $14 million in pay from Freddie Mac and former CEO Daniel Mudd, 50, may get $7 million to $9 million from Fannie Mae.
  
  
• Sept. 9 - Norway’s Pension Fund Excludes Rio Tinto on Ethical Grounds.  Norway's Ministry of Finance said that it was selling off the £500m stake held in Rio Tinto by its Government Pension Fund because of its involvement in a joint venture with Freeport McMoRan, a company excluded by the fund in 2006, The Guardian reported.  “The Council on Ethics has concluded that Rio Tinto is directly involved, through its participation in the Grasberg mine in Indonesia, in the severe environmental damage caused by that mining operation,” said a Fund spokeswoman.  Many other British and American companies are also being excluded.
  
  
• Sept. 9 - U.S. Declares No Safe Haven for Corrupt Foreigners.  A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said the United States will now deny a safe haven to corrupt public officials and their dependents, The Citizen newspaper reported from Tanzania.  However, the move would only affect people in countries where public corruption “seriously affects specified American national interests.”
  
  
• Sept. 9 - Arrests for Corporate Corruption in Dubai Continue. Abdullah Nasser Abdullah, deputy chief executive of Dubai-based Islamic mortgage lender Tamweel PJSC, has become the latest senior official drawn into corruption investigations in the emirate, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Mr. Abdullah Nasser adds to a growing list of officials at Dubai companies who have been arrested in a series of corporate investigations.
  
  
• Sept. 8 - New Law in Pakistan Could Hold Government Officials More Accountable.  New legislation is underway in Pakistan that would hold personnel of the armed forces and the judiciary more accountable, the Pakistan Dawn reported. At the same time, Asif Ali Zardari was elected Pakistan's new president, according to the Pakistan Daily Times, after having served almost a year in prison on charges of corruption.
  
  
• Sept. 5 - Major Washington Lobbyist Sentenced to Four Years in Prison.   Jack Abramoff, the powerhouse Washington DC lobbyist who admitted running a wide-ranging corruption scheme that ensnared lawmakers, their aides and government officials, received a reduced sentence of four years in prison because of his cooperation with federal investigators, The Washington Post reported.  More than a dozen people have been convicted in the Abramoff trial, which has contributed to a decline in public trust of the American government.
  
  
• Sept. 4 - Sustainable Investment In the Netherlands Has Increased Eight-Fold.  The Responsible Investor reported that Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) assets under management in the Dutch market have increased by a massive 816% in just two years, according to a Dutch sustainable investment organization.  Increased interest is suggested to be due to a heightened sensitivity to Dutch pension funds alleged to have invested in companies that pollute heavily, are involved in child labor or produce controversial weapons like landmines or cluster bombs.
  
  
• Sept. 4 - Ex-Exec at KBR Pleads Guilty to Paying Over $180M in Bribes to Nigeria.  Albert J. Stanley, a former executive with a Halliburton subsidiary KBR, pleaded guilty to paying two consulting companies over $180 million dollars to be used to pay bribes to Nigerian officials in return for contracts to build a $6 billion liquefied natural gas complex, The New York Times reported.  Mr. Stanley also admitted that he had received $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consultant he had hired.
  
  

• Sept. 4 - U.S. Government Failing to Protect Many Corporate Whistleblowers.  According to records at the U.S Department of Labor, the U.S. Government has ruled in favor of whistleblowers 17 times out of 1,273 complaints filed since 2002, and another 841 cases have been dismissed, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The failure to protect these whistleblowers has been justified on the grounds that employees worked for a corporate subsidiary and are not automatically covered by the legislation, DOL states.
  
  
• Sept. 4 - Top Sustainable Firms Chosen, New Companies Added to Dow Jones Index.  An annual review of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes has been concluded with the addition of 33 new companies on both the World, Pan-European and North American indexes, according to a press release from SAM, a sustainability investment consulting company that worked with Dow Jones on the review.  Top companies in their sectors included Adidas, Air France, BMW, BT Group, Novartis and Unilever, among others.
  
  
• Sept. 3 - “Green” Offices Not A Priority in the UK.  Environmental concerns such as energy efficiency have been pushed to the bottom of the agenda for UK companies as cost becomes increasingly crucial in the more difficult economic climate, The Financial Times reported.
  
  
• Sept. 3 - Sierra Leone Begins Reforms to Strengthen Anti-Corruption Mechanisms.  Sierra Leone has signed a major piece of legislation giving more independence to the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission, reported the Sierra Leone news publication Cocorioko.  The government also says it plans to work harder to fulfill its commitments to the UN Convention Against Corruption, and President Ernest Koroma has also declared his assets. 
  
  
• Sept. 2 - Pakistan Government Suspects Zardari’s Medial Records an Excuse to Escape Trial.  Pakistani Presidential hopeful Asif Ali Zardari has presented more than 200 medical certificates concerned alleged mental disorders, but are being challenged by the Government of Pakistan as fake, The Pakistani Newspaper reports.  Pakistan has submitted a formal request to the London High Court to investigate the authenticity of the documents, which London has accepted and submitted to leading psychology departments in various academic institutions. 
  
  
• Sept. 2 - Chief Regulator Cracks Down on Corporate Governance in Colombia.  Colombian regulators are increasing investigations into insider trading and drafting new rules to crack down on misconduct in South America's fourth-largest exchange, Bloomberg reported.  Tomorrow regulators will present the results of a corporate governance code that requires companies to either comply or explain why they didn't.
  
  
• Sept. 2 - UN Reviews Long Ignored Corruption Claims in Khmer Rouge Trial.  Judges to the Khmer Rouge tribunal urged that "troubling" allegations of corruption within the UN-backed court be fully dealt with, publicly acknowledging for the first time issues of graft among Cambodian staff, The Phnom Penh Post reported.  Claims have been made that employees on the Cambodian side of the court were forced to kick back significant portions of their salaries to their bosses.
  
  
• Sept. 1 - Whistleblowers Helping U.S. Fight Health Care Fraud.  An investigation by the U.S. Justice Department found whistle-blowers helped authorities recover at least $9.3 billion from health care providers accused of defrauding states and the federal government, the Associated Press reported.  Drug makers are required to sell products to state Medicaid programs at the "best price" offered in the private marketplace. But the companies may artificially inflate the price, according to the report.  Whistleblowers now initiate more than 90 percent of the department's lawsuits focusing on health care fraud.
  
  

• August 29 - Former Security Chief Caught After Covering for Thai Ex-President.  Taiwan's former security chief was indicted for allegedly covering up suspected money-laundering activities by former president Chen Shui-bian and his family, The Washington Post reported.  The latest investigation involves $20 million allegedly wired by the former president and his wife to their daughter-in-law's Swiss bank account via accounts in other nations.
  
  
• August 28 – Starbucks CEO Will Not Receive Pay Increase.  Howard Schultz and about 130 other Starbucks executives will receive no salary increases next year, likely due to lackluster performance, The Seattle Times reported.  Last year, Mr. Schultz’s total compensation was $10.6 million. 
  
  
• August 27 - ExxonMobil Will Stand Trial for Human Rights Abuses.  U.S. Judge Louis Oberdorfer in Washington denied a motion by Exxon and ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Exxon of human rights abuses in Indonesia, saying there is evidence Indonesian security forces under contract with the companies committed atrocities against villagers, Bloomberg reported.  The villagers sued in 2001, claiming Indonesia security forces working for Irving, Texas-based Exxon committed murder, torture and rape in Aceh province, where the company operates a government-owned oil and natural gas field and a pipeline.
  
  
• August 27 - China’s Audit Office Finds $4.3 Billion Mismanaged by the State.  China’s auditor-general announced China's National Audit Office (NAO) found 117 cases of official embezzlement in 2007, Xinhua reported.  Specific problems included falsifying budget accounts, fund appropriation and embezzlement, under-reporting revenues and over-reporting expenditures by the state.  So far, 88 people involved in the cases were arrested, prosecuted or convicted and 104 were given disciplinary punishments.
  
  
• August 27 - Study Shows Most Companies in Botswana Fail Governance Standards.  Most domestic companies listed on the Botswana Stock exchange fall short of meeting international standards of corporate governance, according to investigations conducted by the Botswana publication, The Sunday Standard.  The article highlights a number of best corporate governance practices where domestic Botswana companies fail.
  
  

• August 27 - Canadian Judge Urges Corporate Accountability for Alleged Abuse Abroad.  Lawyers Weekly reported that the Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie said lawmakers should consider enacting new legislation that would enable Canadian companies to be sued domestically in superior court for alleged complicity in human rights violations abroad.  Justice Binnie suggested that people with bona fide claims of abuse have no recourse or remedy, while companies who are falsely vilified for alleged complicity in human rights abuses can not effectively clear their names.
  
  
• August 27 - Top Australian Companies Not Publishing Codes of Conduct.  An independent report concludes Australia’s top companies don't comply with international bribery and corruption guidelines, reported The Age.  The analysis, based on each company's published reports, found the country's top 50 companies met legislative requirements but could improve their anti-corruption efforts by publicizing their policies and codes of conduct.
  
  
• August 26 - Corporate Governance A Focus in New B-School Program.  In its newly redesigned business school program, Columbia University in New York will add a non-credit corporate governance module, reported the Financial Times, aimed at enhancing understanding of students’ responsibilities as managers and directors of companies, as well as understanding the importance of corporate governance in all aspects of business.
  
  
• August 25 - Ethics Reforms Lax at U.S. Political Conventions, Some Groups Say.  Ethics reforms in the U.S. Congress, instituted in mid-2007, seem to have little effect on the Democratic National Convention, Reuters reported.  Despite good intentions over many years, last year's reforms and earlier attempts to clean up convention financing "largely have failed to make the nominating conventions more respectable political events," the good-government advocacy group Public Citizen said in a statement.
  
  
• August 22 - Criminal Investigation Begins for Former Alstom Manager. Swiss authorities have arrested one person and raided offices of French group Alstom as part of an investigation into corruption and money laundering, Reuters reported.  The Attorney General's office has started a criminal investigation into a former leading compliance manager from Alstom and member of the executive management of the Alstom Prom AG in Baden.
  
  
• August 21 - Women in Europe Still Earning Less Than Men.  As posted on the CSR Europe website, women in Europe earn on average almost 16% less than men doing similar jobs, according to new data published by Eurofound's European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).  Among the 28 countries examined in the report, the gender wage gap is greatest in Slovakia (26.9%) and least in Slovenia (at 6.9%). Belgium, Greece, Ireland and Italy show a notably narrower gender wage gap of 10% or less.
  
  
• August 20 - Thailand Demands Thaksin’s Extradition to Face Trial.  Thailand is demanding that the British government refuse asylum to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who fled to Britain in order to escape a corruption trial, The Bangkok Post reported.  Leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy handed an open letter to the British government warning that granting asylum to Thaksin would set a ''terrible'' precedent ''for other rich, powerful, and non-democratic figures in Thailand as well as elsewhere'' to do the same thing.
  
  
• August 20 – Indian Government Officials Ignoring Corruption in Road Construction.  Roads are falling to pieces in New Delhi despite completed contracting projects to improve them, The Times of India reported.  Many New Delhi residents say evidence of corruption is obvious, but still most government officials are looking the other way.
  
  
• August 19 - Australian Anti-Graft Group Uncovers Contract Corruption.  Two government contractors in Australia managed to siphon off more than $2 million earmarked for the creation of a new fire brigade using false or fake tenders and documents, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.  The two contract managers indicated that it was standard office practice and that corruption is more widespread.
  
  
• August 19 – Dubai Corruption Raises Investor Fears.  A series of financial scandals at major Dubai firms threaten to derail the Gulf Arab emirate's ambitions to become an international business hub unless the government tackles corruption head on, Reuters reported. 
  
  
• August 18 - Environment Receiving More Attention in Corporations Studies Say.  Amid rising investor worries over global warming and shrinking natural resources, about 25% of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. now have a board committee overseeing the environment, compared with fewer than 10% five years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Also, the number of investor proposals related to the environment nearly doubled between 2004 and 2008.
  
  
• August 18 - Ethics Important to Strategic Function of HR Dept.  An article in a Malaysian business news publication, The Edge Daily, encourages the use of a “strategic” human resources department in which ethics would play a leading role.  Instead of being relegated to administrative tasks, HR professionals should “improve the ethics of workers by drawing up codes of conduct and ways to measure and improve people’s adherence to the code.”  
  
  
• August 18 - Transparency International Warns of Corruption in Bangladesh Forest Industry.  AFP reported that Bangladesh's jungles, including the world's largest mangrove forest the Sunderbans, are being destroyed because of rampant corruption in the nation's forest department, according to Transparency International.  Bribery was most evident in the appointment process for top-level jobs.
  
  
• August 17 - OECD Criticizes Britain on Anti-Corruption Record.  The anti-bribery working group of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development attacked London’s performance in tackling corporate bribery overseas in a letter delivered to the government in June, The Financial Times reported. The message suggests London can expect a tough time at the next meeting of the OECD anti-bribery group in October, where members could take the embarrassing and unprecedented step of pushing for Britain to be suspended.
  
  
• August 15, 2008 - Dubai Confronts Corruption Scandal. Gulf Times reported that Adel al-Shirawi, the former chief executive of Dubai-based Islamic mortgage lender Tamweel, is being held by police in Dubai. Gulf News stated, "Developers in the Gulf have walked into a minefield of controversy and speculation as corruption claims, investigations and embezzlement threaten to damage the real estate market."
  
  
• August 14, 2008 - John Githongo - Kenyan Anti-Corruption Fighter - Returns Home from Exile. Former Kenyan Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics John Githongo, who fled to the UK from death threats in Kenya, said he is committed to helping Kenya through the transitional period after the violence that rocked the country early this year, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation reported..
  
  Githongo noted that he has been invited to address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission in Nairobi on 20 August by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka. He said he is encouraged by these leaders "and now believes that it is time to return home and make any contribution I can to the future of my country...I intend to speak my mind on what I feel needs to be done. I have no political affiliations. My obligations are solely to the people of Kenya - particularly the poor, the dispossessed and those in need."
  
  For the last three years he has been a Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford, and Vice-President, Policy and Advocacy, of the relief, development and advocacy agency World Vision. He was a courageous journalist in Kenya and then the leader of Transparency International Kenya before entering the Government.
  
  
• August 13 - South Korean President Pardons Business Tycoons. President and former Hyundai executvie Cheong Wa Dae announced a sweeping amnesty for 74 prominent convicted corporate executives, saying the move will help encourage the business community to redouble its efforts to revive the economy. The Korean Times reported opposition parties argued the Government is not serious about cleaning up the country's corporate culture. Tycoons pardoned included Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo, SK Energy Chairman Chey Tae-won and Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn. The Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the special pardon will help boost transparent corporate governance and ethical management. TI-Korea also released a statement condemning the President's actions.
  
  
• August 12 - Tommy Suharto Facing Charges. The youngest son of the former Indonesian leader has been charged with corruption and tax evasion, but has forcefully denied the charges, according to an AFP story on Australian Radio. His lawyers claimed the charges aim to justify keeping a freeze on Suharto's assets in the British dependency of Guernsey.
  
  
• August 12 -  Mounting European Union – Romania Corruption Clash. EUBusiness carries an AFP report that Romania's justice minister has replaced the head of the anti-corruption directorate DNA, Daniel Morar, despite Brussels' wish that he remain in his post. Morar caused a domestic politiocal storm on investigating eight prominent politicians, including former PM Adrian Nastase. The European Commission has stated support for the DNA chief, noting that it was crucial to have "institutional stability in investigations targeting high-level corruption."
  
  
• August 11 -  Thailand's former PM Thaksin flies to London - Bangkok arrest warrant issued. As London's Daily Mail reported former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has today flown back to the UK on the eve of facing multiple corruption charges in Bangkok. The billionaire was due to return to Bangkok after watching the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Thaksin, who owns UK Premier League Manchester City, and his wife are meant to report to courts under bail conditions set in various corruption cases against them. AP reported from Bangkok that Thailand's Supreme Court issued arrest warrants for him and his wife today.
  
  
• August 8 -  The Olympic Games open in Beijing Today. The occasion has been used by major non-governmental organizations to promote some critical issues – Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International decry what they claim are China’s broken pledges to end abuse and promote human rights. Transparency International underscores the scale of corruption in sport.
  
  Human Rights Watch said: “The run-up to the Beijing Olympics has been marred by a well-documented surge in violations of the rights of free expression and association, as well as media freedom. In addition, abuses of migrant construction workers who were pivotal to Beijing’s infrastructure improvements have increased, as have evictions of Beijing residents whose homes were demolished to make way for that infrastructure. Those abuses reflect both the Chinese government’s wholesale failure to honor its Olympics-related human rights promises, as well as the negligence of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in ensuring that China fulfills its commitments.”
  
  Amnesty International stressed: “The Chinese authorities have broken their promise to improve the country’s human rights situation and betrayed the core values of the Olympics, according to a new Amnesty International report. Published to mark the 10-day countdown to the Games, the report evaluates the performance of the Chinese authorities in four areas related to the core Olympic values of ’universal fundamental ethical principles’ and ‘human dignity’: these include persecution of human rights activists, detention without trial, censorship and the death penalty.“
  
  Transparency International argued: " Corruption has been recognised as one of the biggest threats to modern sport which fundamentally undermines all Olympic ideals. Bribing arbiters and decision-makers, betting scandals, corruption in procurement systems and construction of sport infrastructure, sponsors trying to influence sporting decisions as well as the existence of secret doping networks, demonstrate a wide range of possibilities for corruption in sports. Not only does corruption turn the game into a deception of rivals, it deceives primarily the audience and destroys the dreams of millions of fans.”
  
  
• August 7 - As Olympics start, all eyes on China -- new study by Business for Social Responsibility.Timing is everything as BSR releases a detailed paper on how companies in China, who work directly with factory managers to equip suppliers with CSR skills, knowledge and systems are more effective in addressing persistent issues such as labor standards violations, environmental degradation, and poor health and safety protections.
  
  
• August 6 – Nigeria’s Top Anti-Corruption Chief Demoted.  The former head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption police Nuhu Ribadu’s efforts to fight graft in one of the world’s most corrupt countries had been applauded by many Nigerians and by foreign investors, but Nigeria’s police regulatory authority demoted Ribadu and 139 other police officers saying they were given irregular promotions by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, The Financial Times reported. 
  
  
• August 5 – Chavez Bars Opponents from Running Claiming They’re Corrupt.  Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that a list barring hundreds of candidates suspected of corruption from running in elections is constitutional, despite complaints that it singles out opponents of President Hugo Chavez, The Associated Press reported.  Some believe Chavez is using the charges of corruption to root out political rivals.  None of the candidates on the list, who are mostly from the opposition party, have been charged.
  
  
• August 5 - Internet Companies Developing Voluntary Code of Conduct.  Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, in negotiations with other Internet companies and human rights groups, reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other restrictive countries, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The voluntary code will spell out "principles of freedom of expression and privacy" in countries where governments seek users' private information or block access to certain Web sites.
  
  
• August 4 - Some Companies Skimming Pension Funds to Pay for Executive Benefits.  In its own investigation, The Wall Street Journal found companies are using pension funds for regular workers to pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation, while at the same time capturing tax breaks.  Besides being a dubious use of tax law, WSJ reports, the scheme can drain assets from pension plans and make them more likely to fail, ultimately harming workers themselves.
  
  
• August 4 - Zuma Gets Support Despite Corruption Charges.  More than 1,000 people turned out today to cheer Jacob Zuma, the leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress party, as he arrived in court to try to get corruption and fraud charges against him dropped, The Guardian reported.
  
  
• August 4 - Pandemonium at Steel Plant Adds to Bulgaria’s Woes.  Union workers at the giant, troubled steel plant in Bulgaria recently held managers as virtual prisoners to force them to sign a contract, The Wall Street Journal reported. An ex-wrestler who allegedly amassed wealth by squeezing the plant for cash was shot dead by a sniper. Suppliers are suing the factory to force it into bankruptcy as two steel magnates compete to gain control of it.
  
  
• August 1 - Nike Investigation Finds Labor Abuse in Malaysian Supplier Factory.  Nike has found major worker rights violations at one of its Malaysian contract factories, including squalid living conditions, garnished wages and withheld passports of foreign workers, The Associated Press reported.  Nike said all workers are being transferred to Nike-inspected and approved housing, roughly 100 have already been moved and the transition will be complete within a month.
  
  
• August 1 – TI-Greece Launches Public Awareness Campaign to Reduce Corruption.  The head of the Greek chapter of Transparency International stressed the importance of enforcing laws on the books in order to increase transparency in an interview with Spero News.  TI-Greece recently launched a public awareness campaign calling for politicians to subscribe to a code of moral conduct, reduce the scope of current rules that make them exempt from persecution and set transparent rules for the financing of political parties. Private business is urged to boost corporate governance, protect whistle-blowers and increase the independence of non-executive board members.
  
  

• July 31 - BAE Payments Linked to Zimbabwean Arms Dealer.  BAE Systems, the British arms manufacturer under investigation in several countries for alleged bribery, paid at least £20m to a company linked to a Zimbabwean arms trader allied to President Robert Mugabe, documents seen by The Financial Times show. BAE refuses to provide details of its relationships with agents, although it has pledged to introduce reforms as part of an effort to improve its image after the corruption investigation into its multibillion-pound al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
  
  
• July 31 - Greece Aims to Strengthen Anti-Money Laundering Laws.  Greece has abolished its independent anti-money laundering unit amid a long-running scandal over the alleged bribery of Greek politicians and officials by the Siemens group, The Financial Times reported.  Parliament approved a law replacing the independent unit with a new finance ministry committee to tackle money-laundering and economic crime.
  
  
• July 31 - Large SRI Fund Pays Fine for Violating Its Own Rules.  Pax World Management Corp., one of the best-known "socially responsible" investment (SRI) firms, agreed to pay a $500,000 fine to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it violated its own rules against purchasing shares in companies involved in such businesses as defense, alcohol, tobacco and gambling, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The SEC alleged that two Pax funds failed to screen 41 stocks and bonds to see if they met socially responsible criteria.
  
  
• July 31 - Several World Leaders Embroiled by Corruption.  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he has decided not to contend in the Kadima primary election and would resign as soon as the new party leader was chosen, due to the ongoing corruption investigations against him, Haaretz reported. South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma failed to prevent documents seized in police raids being used in evidence at his graft trial next week, AFP reported. The wife of the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been convicted of tax evasion by a court in Bangkok and sentenced to three years imprisonment, The Telegraph reported. Mr Thaksin himself is on trial in three other cases and at least a dozen more are under investigation.
  
  
• July 30 - U.S. Senator Ted Stevens Charged with Failing to Disclose Gifts.  A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia charged Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska (pictured) with failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts he received from the VECO Corporation, once one of Alaska’s largest oil field contractors, The New York Times reported.  In accordance with Senate Republican rules, Mr. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, temporarily relinquished his leadership positions.
  
  
• July 30 - UK Ruling on BAE A Blow to Anticorruption Advocacy Groups.  The U.K. House of Lords ruled that Britain's antifraud agency acted lawfully when it halted a corruption inquiry into a major jet fighter and arms deal between BAE Systems PLC and Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. and Swiss authorities are still running their own investigations into allegations that BAE ran a multimillion-pound "slush fund" to woo Saudi officials as part of the al-Yamamah arms deal in the 1980s.
  
  
• July 29 - High Profile Bribery Case Tests Indonesia’s Will.  An Indonesian court sentenced a businesswoman to five years in jail for bribing a public prosecutor to drop a high-profile investigation, Reuters reported.  The case has dominated the news in Indonesia over the past few months, leading to the removal of several officials and raising questions about Indonesia's commitment to tackling corruption, particularly when it relates to big, powerful business interests.
  
  
• July 28 - The Washington Post Analyzes Executive Pay.  The Washington Post published a feature story on executive pay amid the growing financial crisis in the United States.  Many are angry that despite taking huge losses, CEO of big banks are walking off with huge paychecks.  The Post reported that leaders at Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Capital One Financial, Allied Capital and American Capital each earned more than $10 million in 2007.
  
  
• July 28 - Siemens Ex-Manager Convicted on Corruption Charges. Reinhard Siekaczek, a former Siemens manager was convicted of corruption and sentenced by a Munich state court to two years' probation and a $170,000 fine, The Associated Press reported.  Prosecutors said Mr. Siekaczek set up a complex network of shell corporations to siphon off company money over several years. They said the money was used as bribes to help secure contracts abroad by paying off would-be suppliers, government officials and potential customers.
  
  
• July 28 - Opium Production Growing, Despite Million Dollar Efforts to Stop It.  Corruption in Afghanistan is hobbling efforts to combat the booming opium trade with powerful drug lords, Reuters reported, evading justice by simply making a telephone call to friends in high places, a United Nations official said.  The former head U.S. official on the heroine trade in Afghanistan recently accused the President Karzai of obstructing counter-narcotics efforts and protecting drug lords.
  
  
• July 28 - Investigating Corporate Fraud Becoming Increasingly Difficult, Report Says.  The Financial Times reported that the growing complexity of corporate fraud and the intricacies of the US legal system are affecting the way companies approach internal investigations, according to a report by Kroll, the risk consultancy. In a recent global survey, Kroll estimated four out of five companies suffered corporate fraud in the past three years. This cost companies an average $20 million in the same period.
  
  
• July 28 - China Moving Ahead on Corporate Governance Reforms.  Financial News Online reported that compared to other emerging market economies, Chinese private corporations are ahead of the curve on good governance, according to fund managers.  Key governance reforms, such as greater information disclosure, have improved investment there.
  
  
• July 25 – New Study Tracks Corporate Efforts to Engage Employees.  An important part of creating a strong corporate culture in the workplace is maintaining employee engagement.  The initial findings of a new study produced by Article 13 show the progress some companies have made in implementing “behavioral change programs” and management-employee question and answer sessions.  The news article is posted on CSR Europe.
  
  
• July 24 – Thousands Apply for Brazilian Government Jobs to Live the Good Life.  Thousands of Brazilians are forced to go through life without basic public services while an average of 700 students vie for one civil servant position which they say is catching the “train of happiness,” Reuters reported.  The article highlights how Brazil’s unwieldy government is due in large part to cushy government jobs that pay very well and often are wrought with corruption.
  
  
• July 24 - Dirty Politics in India Surface on Parliament Floor.  The Indian ruling party just barely survived a vote of confidence, but not without a flurry of outbursts and allegations that some legislators had been bribed to vote in favor of the ruling party.  The Washington Post ran an article outlining the underlining problems in Indian politics that led to what one observer called a “stupefying” event in Parliament.
  
  
• July 24 - More Protests Erupt Over Governance Standards at Marks & Spencer.  Marks & Spencer, the British clothing retailer, faced another challenge to its decision to combine the role of Chairman and CEO, an uncommon practice in the UK compared to the U.S.  Bloomberg reported that Britain’s Local Authority Pension Fund will call for the appointment of an independent chairman if Stuart Rose's dual position hasn't been separated by next year’s annual meeting.
  
  
• July 23 - EU Suspends Funds to Bulgaria.  The European Commission issued a scathing indictment of corruption in Bulgaria, suspending aid worth hundreds of millions of euros and barring two key payments agencies from receiving EU funds, Reuters reported.  The two reports on Bulgaria -- one on funds and the other on judicial reform -- were the harshest criticism ever levelled by Brussels at a member state.
  
  
• July 23 - WSJ Commentary Blasts World Bank Lending Strategies.  An editorial in the Wall Street Journal criticized the World Bank for continuing to lend money to countries with extremely poor records on anti-corruption and human rights.  “Under former President Paul Wolfowitz, the bank cancelled 14 road contracts in Bangladesh after evidence came to light of corrupt bidding,” the article said. “But with Mr. Wolfowitz gone, bank lending to the country under President Robert Zoellick has doubled in the past year alone, to $753 million.
  
  
• July 22 - Berlusconi Will Escape Corruption Investigation.  The Italian Parliament has officially approved a bill that grants immunity to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the BBC reported.  The bill protects top public officials, including the prime minister, from prosecution while they are in office.  Mr. Berlusconi has been charged numerous times for corruption, tax fraud and illegal party funding.
  
  
• July 22 - Some Seeing Positive Changes to Promote Diversity in French Workforce.  The French government is claiming progress in diversifying French workplaces, the BBC reported.  After riots broke out across France in 2005, started in large part due to a feeling of disenfranchisement among French minorities, the Nicholas Sarkozy government has led a real campaign to promote diversity.  However, some minorities interviewed said there is still much room for improvement.
  
  
• July 22 - Kazakh Insider Says Corruption Worse Than Previously Thought.  A former member of the Kazakh royal family is accusing its authoritarian ruler of extensive corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported.  While not the first claims of corruption in Kazakhstan, the former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev alleged that the president personally profits from his country's riches to a greater extent than previously thought.
  
  
• July 22 – BAE Says It Will Implement Woolf Committee Recommendations.  BAE Systems has announced that it will implement all 23 recommendations of Lord Woolf's ethics report in a three-year program that will be monitored by an external auditor, Reuters reported.  BAE said it hoped "to be recognized as a global leader in ethical business conduct" once a three-year program to achieve benchmark standards of governance is completed.
  
  
• July 22 - Indian Legislators Cause A Scene Claiming Some Were Bribed for Votes.  Debate was interrupted inside the Indian government by unprecedented scenes of opposition parliamentarians brandishing large bundles of cash, 90 minutes before the scheduled vote, alleging opposition legislators had been offered bribes to abstain from the vote, the Wall Street Journal reported.  The head of the chief opposition party said three members of Parliament told him they were offered 30 million rupees, or about $750,000, each to abstain from the vote of confidence.
  
  
• July 22 - TI Closes Bosnia Office Amid Safety Concerns.  Transparency International, the global anti-corruption watchdog, says its Bosnian branch faced a government-led smear campaign, the Financial Times reported. It closed its office in Banja Luka, the Serb “entity” administrative centre, on July 10, citing fears for staff safety “in the absence of any meaningful local police protection.” 
  
  
• July 20 - Oil Wealth Mismanagement Keep Most Nigerians in Poverty.  A Reuters article provides a first-hand account of the mismanagement of oil money in Nigeria.  Nigeria has earned nearly $1.2 trillion from oil production over the past four decades, but nine out of 10 Nigerians live on less than $2 a day, their lives blighted by poor infrastructure and a lack of public services resulting from decades of endemic corruption.
  
  
• July 19 – Anti-Corruption Agency Granted Access to Indonesian Legislators.  The House of Representatives of Indonesia is to give the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) permission to investigate legislators involved in corruption, Xinhua reported.  The hope is that the number of arrests made for those legislators suspected of bribery will serve as a lesson for other legislators, said House Speaker Agung Laksono.
  
  
• July 18 - UBS Will Halt Offshore Banking Options for U.S. Customers.  Faced with a federal investigation into its private banking practices, the Swiss banking giant UBS said that it would stop offering offshore banking services to clients in the United States, The New York Times reported.  A U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations released a report saying that UBS’s offshore practices helped American citizens hide an estimated $18 billion in 19,000 accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.
  
  
• July 18 - U.S. Congress Relaxes Ethics Rules for Lobbyists.  New U.S. congressional rules exempt lobbyists from reporting their financing of an array of political and charitable contributions, events and parties at political conventions, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The new ethics rules exempts companies from revealing their sponsorship of most parties at this summer’s political party conventions.
  
  
• July 18 - European Union Freezes $1.6B in Aid to Bulgaria Over Corruption.  As a result of investigations into the management of EU funds in Bulgaria, an EU report will confirm that it has banned four Bulgarian agencies from handling EU funds because of corruption, freezing nearly 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in pre-accession aid and threatening future payments, Deutsche Welle reported.  In leaked statements reprinted earlier this week, EU investigators said that, among other discrepancies, they had found that Bulgaria had misused money from EU farm aid projects worth some 32 million euros.
  
  
• July 17 – Italy Abolishes Anti-Corruption Commission.  The decision by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, to abolish the country’s anti-graft commission to save money has sparked international outcry, The Financial Times reported.  The head of the commission said he did not know whether or how his commission’s work would continue inside ministries. He told the FT that Italy’s corruption and governance rankings – issued by the World Bank and Transparency International– would suffer.
  
  
• July 16 - Changes at Britain’s Fraud Office Concern Some Corporate Fraud Experts.  Richard Alderman, director of the UK Serious Fraud Office, said the agency aimed to increase its case-load of 65 to 100 or more by closing unpromising probes and switching the resources to new investigations in financial crime, The Financial Times reported.  Mr Alderman’s plans have raised fears among fraud experts that he will cut the number of criminal cases the agency brings against big companies and senior executives.
  
  
• July 16 - Former Samsung Chairman Will Pay $110M, Serve No Prison Time.  A district court judge found the former chairman of the Samsung conglomerate, Lee Kun-hee, guilty of tax evasion and sentenced him to a suspended prison term that means no time behind bars, adding to a long-time pattern of South Korean courts dealing light penalties to major business figures, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The special prosecutor found no evidence of bribery. but indicted Mr. Lee for using the secret accounts to hide about $4.5 billion in assets he inherited from his father, founder of the Samsung Group.  Mr. Lee is being ordered to pay a $110 million fine.
  
  
• July 16 - Toyota Ranked Most Ethical in Latest Corporate Ranking.  The latest survey in a series of quarterly reports ranks Toyota as the most ethical company across sectors, according the Covalence website, the company responsible for producing the rankings.  Unilever and HSBC came out on top, while Automobiles and Technology occupied best progress category. Wal-Mart and General Motors, along with Toyota show best Reported Performance, according to the survey.  
  
  
• July 15 - Scandals Continue to Beset Former Taiwan President.  Five former Taiwanese ministers were indicted on corruption charges related to the alleged misuse of special expense accounts, The Washington Post reported.  Former President Chen Shui-bian himself is under investigation for his handling of secret state funds. His wife was indicted on charges of embezzling $450,000 from government accounts while Chen was still in office, and her trial is underway. In addition, their son-in-law has been convicted of insider trading and several senior aides of influence peddling.
  
  
• July 15 - Bribe Reporting Website Shows New Data on China. Government workers in China requested 85 percent of bribes in the country that were reported to an international Web site that tracks corruption, The Associated Press reported.  BRIBEline, the first international hotline for reporting bribery, issued its first country-specific report outside the U.S. focusing on China.  The BRIBEline website allows people to anonymously report bribe requests made of them and describe the country, the person asking for the bribe, the amount and the general circumstances involved.  See EthicsWorld coverage of the BRIBEline launch.
  
  
• July 15 - Corruption in the U.S. Border Patrol Skyrocketing.  The increasing use of bribes by Mexican drug cartels to corrupt U.S. agents comes as the U.S. government is sending $400 million to help Mexico's army-led war on the trafficking gangs, whose brutal murders have surged to unprecedented levels, The Washington Post reported.  Data on agents convicted of graft are not made public, but the U.S. government is probing hundreds of border corruption cases where a decade ago it saw a few dozen a year. The FBI-led Border Corruption Task Force says it is busier than ever.
  
  
• World Bank Exposé Now in Bookstores.  A new book lambasting World Bank corruption and mismanagement, written by former World Bank staffer, Steve Berkman, has hit the shelves. In the book, The World Bank and The Gods of Lending, “Berkman demonstrates how the World Bank’s mission to ‘alleviate poverty’ has been derailed by corruption,” writes Publishers Weekly.  “A fascinating firsthand account of the Bank’s failures, and its case studies – notably sections on Bank projects in Nigeria and Gambia – make for a valuable and important read.”
  
  
• July 14 - French Authorities Continue Insider-Trading Probe at EADS.  The chief executive at EADS condemned a French investigation into the possibility insider trading in the company's shares as a “show trial,” the Wall Street Journal reported.  Three former EADS executives and one current official have been charged in France with insider trading in what has become the country's highest-profile insider-trading investigation.
  
  
• July 13 - Defense Companies Discuss Universal Code of Ethics.  European and US defence companies will hold talks on a joint code of ethics to cover arms sales, The Financial Times reported.  European companies have recently developed an anti-corruption code in a bid to improve the industry’s reputation, which has suffered in the wake of allegations of bribery and corruption in connection with some of its biggest players. The aim is to establish a harmonised global industry standard for ethical business practices.
  
  
• July 11 - Female Representation on Canadian Boards Sees Little Change. A study by a Canadian non-profit research organization suggests that the persistent under-representation of women on corporate boards and the slow pace of change may have disturbing implications for company performance and governance in Canada, reported the Canadian newspaper, The Business Edge.  The report found that women represent 13 per cent of corporate board seats in the Financial Post's top 500 corporations, and this representation increased by only one per cent since 2005.
  
  
• July 11 - Indonesia Studies Potential $21B Loss in Oil Revenues.  Indonesia's anti-graft agency is looking into potential losses to the state of as much as 194 trillion rupiah ($21.17 billion) from oil revenues, Reuters reported.  There is debate between two local oil revenue monitoring groups over how to calculate the numbers.
  
  
• July 10 - Drug Industry Issues New Conduct Code, Some Debate Effectiveness. The pharmaceutical industry will announce a new, voluntary code of conduct on its interactions with doctors and other health-care professionals, The Wall Street Journal reported.  But some of the most controversial practices among drug companies aren't targeted in the new code: it doesn't limit the amount of money firms can spend on consulting or speaking arrangements with doctors, which have amounted to millions of dollars in the past decade.
  
  
• July 10 - German Government Shows Support for Regulating Executive Pay.  The German government is poised to crack down on excessive executive pay before the end of the year in a move that could curtail the use of stock options to reward directors based in the country, The Financial Times reports.  The compensation explosion was largely due to the adoption of performance-related ­packages, the FT reported. Chief executives of large exchange-listed companies now earn on average 100 to 200 times the average salaries in their companies.  The proposals are expected to pass in autumn.
  
  
• July 10 - Brazil Issues New Corporate Governance Rules for Mutual Funds. In Brazil’s latest attempt to improve corporate governance, mutual funds are being required to vote their shares at company meetings, reported The Wall Street Journal.  Many Brazilian companies have been dominated by controlling shareholders, often representing the founding families.  The new regulation is the latest of several steps to encourage and reassure Western investors that the companies are trustworthy.
  
  
• July 9 - British Aid Committee Says Aid Agencies Need to Increase Accountability.  The Financial Times reported that British relief agencies need to be more accountable, according to The Disasters Emergency Committee, which co-ordinates fundraising and distribution of public donations for crises around the world.  The committee’s trustees pledge systematically to monitor and report publicly on objectives, including running well-managed appeals, using funds as stated, and achieving intended program objectives and outcomes.
  
  
• July 9 - Ghana Moving Forward on Good Governance.  A new Center of Excellence will be launched next year in Ghana to enhance good governance in the African sub-region, The Accra Daily Mail reported.  It will be responsible for creating best practices in strengthening democracy and increasing fiscal transparency.
  
  
• July 9 – Anti-Corruption Officials in Bangledesh Discovered Taking Bribes.  Bangladesh's top anti-corruption body admitted that it has discovered several of its own officials taking bribes while enforcing a nationwide crackdown on the practice, AFP reported.  The officials exposed include two directors and several assistant directors.  The Commission said it will take action against 28 officials and 11 will go to court. 
  
  
• July 8 - New U.S. Congressional Ethics Office Still Lacks Leader.  The House of Representatives’ new Office of Congressional Ethics is supposed to be open for business as early as this week, but top congressmen have not yet appointed people to run it, The Politico reports.  If the congressmen wait much longer, the new office will not be able to investigate any cases that may arise within this election cycle.
  
  
• July 8 - Saudi Arabia Under Fire over Domestic Labor Laws.  Human Rights Watch has asked the Saudi authorities to implement reforms in order to protect foreign domestic workers from abuse that could amount to slavery in some cases, The Financial Times reported.  HRW says overwork was the most common complaint from women it interviewed. Most reported working 15-20 hours per day without days off or paid leave. A common complaint was food deprivation. Some spoke of beatings and sexual violence.
  
  
• July 8 – Thaksin Corruption Trial Begins.  The corruption trial of Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed Thai prime minister, begins this week in Bangkok, The Telegraph reported.  The military government in Thailand has frozen £1 billion of Mr Thaksin's assets and launched several corruption investigations against him. This case, which accuses Mr. Thaksin of purchasing prime Bangkok real estate for one third of its assessed value, is the first to reach trial, but many more are pending.
  
  
• July 3 - President Medvedev’s Anti-corruption Plan. Russia’s leader said he wants a package of anti-corruption legislation in place by next year. Reuters reported that  Medvedev has said the plan will be based on three pillars: creating incentives for officials to work honestly, making sure that corrupt officials do not escape punishment and changing the national mentality, which has traditionally tolerated graft. But he said the answer was not a Kremlin-orchestrated purge of corrupt officials as in the past but a broader approach, that would include ceding powers to the private sector.
  
  
• July 3 - Nigeria and Zambia Charge Aviation Ministers with Corruption in Separate Cases: AFP reported that Nigeria's anti-graft agency EFCC has charged two former aviation ministers and another former top official of the aviation ministry with corruption offences. Sums of over US$165 million are said to be involved in these cases.  Moreover, the head of an Austrian firm upgrading facilities at Nigerian airports, has also been  arrested after giving evidence to the parliamentary probe last week. The probe is the latest in a series into activities in the eight years while President Olusegun Obasanjo until 2007.
  
  
• Zambia Continues to Struggle with Corruption Allegations. In another AFP report stated that Zambia's former air force chief General Sundie Kayumba has been arrested and charged with corruption. The ex-commander, who served under both former President Frederick Chiluba and current head of state Levy Mwanawasa, had already been on trial for theft of public funds and corruption. Almost all former commanders under Chiluba have been arrested and charged with various offences of corruption and theft of public funds during their tenure in office. Chiluba, 65, who ruled Zambia from 1991 to 2001, is himself on trial for theft of public funds even though he denied the accusations saying the charges were politically-motivated.
  
  
• July 2 - Former NYSE Head Wins Court Case Over $190 million Pay. After 5 years of court controversy, former head of the New York Stock Exchange Richard Grasso has been able to keep all of his total final compensation of $187.5 million. After winning the latest court battle on technical issues, the New York State prosecutors have said they are not going to push this case any further, according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted, “the case was one of the biggest defeats suffered by authorities in the past decade in white-collar civil and criminal cases aimed at alleged financial improprieties.”
  
  
• July 2 - Top Judge in Russia Wants New Law Making High-Level Prosecutions Easier. Russian Supreme Court chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev has proposed removing legal hurdles that make it hard to prosecute senior officials, including judges and lawmakers, The Moscow Times reported.  Prosecutors must now apply to a court for permission to start criminal proceedings against certain categories of officials. Lebedev said he had prepared a draft law that would abolish that requirement.
  
  
• July 1 - UN Kicks out 630 Companies from the Global Compact.  More than 600 companies have been blacklisted and kicked out by the UN Global Compact for failing to deliver on their commitments to ethical corporate behavior, BusinessGreen.com reported. The list of firms removed from the Compact include Groupe Fiat France and the subsidiaries and affiliates of a number of high-profile multinationals, such as Ernst & Young, Brazil, Barclays Bank of Ghana Ltd, L'Oreal Argentina SA, and Mitsubishi Motors Cebu Corporation.
  
  
• July 1 - Ebay Forced to Pay 40M Euros for Counterfeiting Violations.  After a long dispute between Ebay and luxury brand companies over counterfeit products, Ebay was ordered by a French court to pay Louis Vuitton 40 million euros, the most significant judgment to date, The Financial Times reported.  Ebay has been accused of not moving fast enough to crack down on counterfeit goods sold on its website and violating agreements with Louis Vuitton that limits the way its products are sold.
  
  
• July 1 - UBS Faces Tough Choices Over US Probe, Unveils New Governance Rules.  The U.S. Justice Department, in an unprecedented move against a foreign bank, wants to force UBS to turn over a list of wealthy U.S. clients who allegedly used the giant Swiss bank to avoid taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The matter places UBS in a bind between U.S. tax authorities and a Swiss law that prevents banks from disclosing confidential information without client approval.  At the same time, Reuters reported that UBS has introduced new corporate governance measures in response to a review by a governance committee, which includes strengthening the board's oversight role.
  
  
• June 30 - UK’s Fraud Office Considers More Efficient Plan for Future Investigations.  Companies involved in bribery abroad could avoid prosecution by admitting guilt and paying financial penalties under US-style plans to be floated by the head of the Serious Fraud Office, The Financial Times reported.  The proposals could help address unacceptable delays to overseas corruption investigations in the UK.
  
  
• June 28 – U.S. Customs Official Arrested for Accepting Bribes from Immigrants.  An attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his wife were arrested on suspicion of accepting thousands of dollars from both legal and illegal immigrants in exchange for immigration benefits, The Associated Press reported.  The couple allegedly used a pair of companies they had set up, filed false employment petitions with federal authorities for 45 illegal immigrants and two legal permanent residents.
  
  
• June 27 - Female Representation Varies Across European Corporate Boards.  A survey on female board member representation shows a widening disparity in Europe, The Financial Times reported.  The number of women on UK company boards has barely budged in the past two years, rising just 0.1 percentage points to 11.5 per cent, while female representation on Scandanavian boards has jumped to 29 per cent from 23 per cent two years ago.  Italian boards remain just 2 per cent female and Portuguese boards are less than 1 per cent female, according to the survey.




Merck to Sponsor Important Program Linking Business and Society.  Merck & Co. has signed on as the lead sponsor of Carnegie Council's Workshops for Ethics in Business program.  "Through the program, the Council is playing an important role in promoting ethical and transparent business practices that can help limit corruption, ensure fair and open competition, and encourage a better business environment, all of which are essential to economic growth and improved standards of living," said Dr. Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Vice President, Corporate Responsibility, Merck. Workshops for Ethics in Business seeks to foster meaningful dialogue between companies and civil society members on the most challenging ethical issues that both groups face.



• June 26 - More Shareholders in Japanese Companies Urging Better Governance.  Japan's big institutional shareholders are finally telling company directors to shape up, providing the most pressure yet for Japanese companies to improve their corporate governance, The Wall Street Journal reported.  At this year's round of annual meetings, many Japanese asset managers are expected to vote against the reappointment of managers who are underperforming or adopting takeover defenses.
  
  
• June 26 - U.S. Supreme Court Cuts Exxon Punitive Fine By $2B. In the final act to a legal drama that began with the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 years ago, a splintered U.S. Supreme Court sliced $2 billion from punitive damages imposed on Exxon Mobil Corp., leaving fishermen, native Alaskans and local landowners with just 20% of the award approved by a federal appeals court, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Justice David Souter said the $2.5 billion punitive-damages award set by the appellate court shouldn't have exceeded the actual damages of $507.5 million, which could render future awards for damages unpredictable and potentially unjust.
  
  
• June 25 - Immunity for Former Niger PM Lifted.  The 72-28 vote by Niger's parliament to lift the immunity of former prime minister Hama Amadou is being hailed by civil society activists, Voice of America reported.  Former prime minister Amadou has been accused of misusing more than $200,000 meant to help develop the local press. The parliamentary vote means Amadou can be brought to trial in Niger's High Court and if convicted put in jail.
  
  
• June 25 - World Bank Report Says Global Governance Shows No Improvement. The Financial Times reported that the average quality of governance around the world did not improve to any significant degree last year in spite of the focus on good governance as a vital contributor to economic development, according to an annual World Bank report.  There has been significant improvement in some countries, the report says, but this progress was offset by significant deterioration in other countries, particularly Zimbabwe. 
  
  
• June 25 - Illinois to Sue Countrywide for “Deceptive” Business Practices. The state of Illinois will file a suit against mortgage lender Countrywide for allegations that the company engaged in "unfair and deceptive practices" in the sale of mortgage loans, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The complaint also accuses Countrywide of "marketing and sales techniques" that incentivized employees and mortgage brokers to push loans whether or not homeowners had the ability to repay them.
  
  
• June 24 - Report Shows Perceived Corruption in Ghana Presidency at Highest Since 2005.  A 2008 report measuring corruption in sub-Saharan Africa showed about 70 percent of Ghanaians perceived corruption in the presidency and 77 percent perceived government officials to be corrupt, GNA reported.  Perceived corruption in the presidency and among MPs jumped 14 percentage points, representing the highest level documented between 2005 and 2008.
  
  
• June 23 - Swiss Federal Prosecutors Will Soon Take Up Bribery Probe of Alstom.  A Swiss federal judge said he has almost completed an investigation of a Zurich banker accused of helping French engineering company Alstom SA pay bribes to win international contracts, The Associated Press reported.  The investigation will then be passed to federal prosecutors who will decide whether to make an indictment.
  
  
• June 23 – Guide to Socially Responsible Business School Programs Released. The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, has published its first guide for MBA students seeking socially-responsible business programs, according to an Institute press release. With the guide, prospective students cancompare and contrast MBA programs that deal with social and environmental issues based upon six areas of criteria.
  
  
• June 22 - UAE Implements Updated Anti-Money Laundering Laws.  The United Arab Emirates has implemented new anti-money laundering regulations as it seeks to meet international standards of financial compliance, The Financial Times reported.  Patchy implementation of the existing regulations and the booming economy have combined to leave the country exposed to money laundering and terrorist financing, but the new measures, will require banks to carry out more due diligence on prospective customers, enshrining many existing practices already carried out by international banks operating in the UAE but which are still ignored by some local and regional institutions.
  
  
• June 22 - Chinese CPC Announces New Guidelines to Combat Corruption. A focus of China’s newly unveiled five-year anti-corruption plan is to correct wasteful spending of the government's money by bosses of state-owned corporations, Xinhua reported.  The plan also calls for greater corporate accountability, government supervision and active monitoring by the media.
  
  
• June 20 - UBS Banker Pleads Guilty to Helping Clients Evade Taxes.  A former banker at UBS AG pleaded guilty in federal court to helping a billionaire client evade taxes by hiding $200 million in assets in offshore accounts, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The bankers advised clients to use to hide their wealth, including purchasing artwork and jewels with funds from Swiss accounts.  When asked why he had participated in the scheme, the banker replied, "I was employed by UBS. ... I was incentivized to do this business."
  
  
• June 19 - Bear Stearns Fund Managers Indicted. Two former senior managers of two Bear Stearns hedge funds were charged in an indictment that alleged the two engaged in wire fraud, conspiracy and securities fraud in misleading investors about the rapidly tanking value of the two funds, Market Watch reported.  Personal e-mails reveal the two managers lied to investors about the deteriorating financial situation, which finally cost investors almost $2 billion.
  
  
• June 19 - Berlusconi Criticized for Attempting to Suspend His Own Corruption Trial. An amendment mandating the suspension for a year of trials for alleged crimes committed before mid-2002 includes a trial in Milan where Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is accused of ordering payment of at least US$600,000 to his co-defendant, British lawyer David Mills, in exchange for false testimony in two Berlusconi trials, The Associated Press reported.  Although Berlusconi claims the suspension would unclog the already bogged down legal system, opposition politicians accuse Berlusconi of using public office to protect his private interests.
  
  
• June 18 - Chinese Reconstruction Efforts Tracking Corruption from the Start.  Chinese authorities have sent nearly 10,000 audit officers to track relief funds and supplies for the Sichuan earthquake in a bid to beat corruption, Xinhua reported. The move is the first of its kind in China that covers both the disaster relief and reconstruction periods, in a bid to tackle corruption early.
  
  
• June 18 - Supreme Court Targeted for Graft in Indonesia.  Investigators from the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) have confiscated documents from the court in search of evidence of embezzlement of administrative fees by court officials, AFP reported.  One investigation has found an alleged web of bribes and influence-peddling in the heart of the attorney general's office, while another resulted in the seizure of thousands of dollars in bribe money at a customs office last month.
  
  
• June 17 - Editorial States Ethical Misgivings Over Countrywide’s Preferential Lending Policy.  An editorial in the Washington Post discusses the ethics of the recent controversy over lending giant Countrywide’s policy of issuing preferential loans to “Friends of Angelo.”  It has recently came to light that several U.S. senators were recipients of low-interest property loans specially organized by Countrywide's CEO Angelo Mozilo. 
  
  
• June 16 - Research Says More U.S. Companies Splitting Chairman-CEO Position.  More U.S. companies are splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive among different people, with the telecommunications and media industries in the lead, Reuters reported.  Fifty-two percent of the U.S. companies tracked by GovernanceMetrics International, a corporate governance research and ratings service, had a combined chairman and CEO, compared with 62 percent three years ago.
  
  
• June 16 - Cambodia Witnessing Massive Public Support for Better Anti-Corruption Laws. A petition to bring local Cambodian anti-corruption laws on par with international standards has garnered 1.1 million signatures thanks to the grassroots campaign by a coalition of civil society organizations, reported IPS News. The campaign aims to get all political parties in the country to commit to supporting the petition before the end of the calendar year. 
  
  
• June 16 - Exxon Contests U.S. Lawsuit Claiming Human Rights Abuse in Indonesia.  The Supreme Court rejected an appeal in Exxon Mobil Corp.'s bid to stop a lawsuit in U.S. courts over allegations of violence by Indonesian soldiers it hired to guard a natural gas plant in the Aceh province, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The lawsuit seeks to hold Exxon Mobil accountable in the U.S. for alleged human-rights abuses by the soldiers under the company's control during a time of separatist unrest in Indonesia, but Exxon Mobil says it can’t be held responsible for the actions of the Indonesian army.
  
  
• June 13 - Problems with Corruption Prompt Talk of Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan.  At a meeting in Paris, international donors pledged $21 billion in additional aid to Afghanistan, but concerns over corruption still linger, The Washington Post reported.  The new pledges are in addition to the $25 billion pledged to Afghanistan since 2002, and international aid groups say that only about $15 billion of those earlier pledges has been delivered, in part because of concerns about corruption, inefficiency and the lack of accountability.
  
  
• June 12 - New UN Report Address Effects of Corruption in Asia.  A new U.N. report examines corruption in Asia from the bottom up, focusing on the ways in which petty bribery and graft hinder the poor's ability to receive essential services, reported the International Herald Tribune. The report lays out a seven-point plan governments can use to reduce what it calls "pervasive" corruption.  A major theme of the report is cross-border cooperation.
  
  
• June 12 - Ethics Lacking in Employee Evaluations, Says New U.S. Study.  In a new national survey, only 43 percent of human resources professionals said their organizations include ethical conduct as part of employees' performance appraisals, according to a press release issued jointly by the Society for Human Resources and the Ethics Resource Center, both U.S.-based organizations.  According to the SHRM/ERC study, only 23 percent of HR professionals say that their organizations have a comprehensive ethics and compliance program in place, and 7 percent report that their employer has no program at all.
  
  
• June 12 - Head of UN Good Governance Mismanaged Funds, Says Internal Report. An internal U.N. investigation has sharply criticized thehead of the organization's "good governance" division, The Washington Times reported, finding he has diverted funds donated by the Greek government to improperly pay contractors and mismanaged a $2.8 million trust fund meant to foster transparency and accountability. The U.N. report suggest Guido Bertucci, director of the U.N. Division for Public Administration and Development Management, personallyreimburse the mismanaged funds and be reprimanded for favoritism and other violations in hiring consultants.
  
  
• June 11 - Criticism Hurled at Lack of Diversity in US Finance Industry. John Rogers, founder and chief executive of Ariel Investments and one of the most prominent African-Americans in US finance has called for greater efforts to include people of colour in senior corporate positions, The Financial Times reported.  “The lack of diversity there is also pretty stunning. In the top 100 hedge funds, there were no people of colour, no African-Americans, no women,” he said.
  
  
• June 11 - Finnish Politicians Exploiting Weak Campaign Funding Laws.  The Chairman of Finland’s Centre Party said he knowing broke the law by failing to reveal who had made donations to his election campaign in 2007, sparking controversy over the effectiveness of the campaign finance law, The Financial Times reported.  Finnish party funding laws state politicians must reveal the source of their donations, but contain no sanctions for those who fail to do so. 
  
  
• June 10 - More Transparent Corporate Filings Reveal Plans for Huge CEO Payouts.  American companies are responding to a rule change made 18 months ago, which requires companies to be clearer about all aspects of their pay packages for CEOs, including death and severance, The Wall Street Journal reported. Comcast filings reveal that if CEO Brian Roberts dies while in office, his heirs would receive $298.1 million. The comparable figures, for example, for Eugene Isenberg of Nabors Industries and for Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum are respectively, $288 million and $115.6 million. These sums include benefits from company paid life insurance policies for top executives.
  
  
• June 10 - National Polls in Israel and Bulgaria Show High Perception of Corruption.  As Israel Democracy Institute poll found 90 percent of the Israeli public believes Israel's leadership is riddled with corruption, and support for the Supreme Court has eroded from 61 percent approval in 2007 to 49 percent this year, Haaretz reported.  A poll from the Sociology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences found one third of the Bulgarians believe that the corruption in the country increased after it joined the EU in January 2007, the Sofia News Agency reported.  According to the poll, the main reason Bulgarians thought corruption grew was that the distribution of EU funds created greater opportunities to engage in corrupt activities.
  
  
• June 9 - Russian Stance Against Judicial Corruption Mixed. Yelena Valyavina, a senior judge at the Federal Arbitration Court, addressed a Moscow courtroom she stated openly what had long been unspoken: The Kremlin has pressured and threatened the Russian judiciary to secure favorable rulings, The Washington Post reported.  Despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s more aggressive tone calling for judicial reform, now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed a lighter tone: Putin said last week that the "judicial system is developing and proving that it is viable."
  
  
• June 8 - Failure to Report Corporate Consulting Fees Could Be Ethical Violation for Harvard Researcher.  In a U.S. Congressional investigation, a prominent Harvard child psychologist belatedly reported receiving at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007, The New York Times reported.  The psychologist’s work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a rapid rise in antipsychotic medicines in children.  According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, researchers are required to report to universities earnings of $10,000 or more per year, for instance, in consulting money from makers of drugs also studied by the researchers in federally financed trials.
  
  
• June 8 - Karzai Asks for Aid as Scrutiny of Governance Performance Increases.  As Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai flies to Paris to appeal for more international aid, he will also face tough questions about widespread corruption and his failure to rein in war-lords responsible for growing lawlessness across the country, The London Times reported.  Damaging comments from Ashraf Ghani, Karzai’s de facto prime minister for three years, reflected that much of the £7.6 billion aid that had gone into Afghanistan since 2001 had been wasted.
  
  
• June 6 - Amid Joint Venture Struggles, BP Chief Urges Russia to Respect Rule of Law.  At the annual meeting of Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company, the chief executive of BP encouraged the state to respect the rule of law, The Financial Times reported.  It emerged this week that Robert Dudley, the head of BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP, had been summoned for questioning by the interior ministry as part of an investigation into tax evasion. BP and a group of Russian billionaires, each of whom own half the company, have been in a power struggle over the control of the company. 
  
  
• June 6 - Former Broadcom CEO Charged with String of Offenses. Federal fraud charges brought against former Broadcom Corp. Chief Executive Henry T. Nicholas III for allegedly backdating stock options were overshadowed by a second federal indictment accusing the executive of distributing drugs and slipping them in business associates' drinks, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Several other former high-level employees at the Southern California technology company were also charged with backdating stock options.  Last year, Broadcom restated years of its financial results and recorded $2.2 billion in extra backdating-related expenses it should have taken originally.
  
  
• June 5 – Former Irish PM Attempts to Explain Suspicious Cash. During the hearing of Ireland’s former prime minister, who recently stepped down, Bertie Ahern argued £15,450 lodged to his and his daughters' building society accounts in 1994 came from accumulated sterling savings he had not mentioned previously at the tribunal, and from the proceeds of horse-racing bets, The Irish Times reported.  The response drew skeptical laughs from those in attendance.
  
  
• June 5 - Proposed Legislation To Prevent Conflict of Interest in German Government.  Germany plans to implement legislation that would prevent business experts, still on their company’s payroll, from taking “senior responsibility for drafting legislation” in government ministries, The Financial Times reported.  An estimated 300 business experts from Deutsche Bank, BASF, Lufthansa and other big groups have since 2004 worked in ministries, in some cases drafting laws, even though they remained on their companies’ payrolls.
  
  
• June 5 - Dutch Taskforce Set to Institute New Corporate Governance Reforms. A taskforce set up by the Dutch government to look into corporate governance rules in the Netherlands has set out proposals including a six-month period for companies to respond to activist shareholders, Reuters reported.  The monitoring committee also recommended supervisory boards exert more control over management pay and ensure transparency and greater correlation between salaries and performance amid a national debate about executive pay.
  
  
• June 4 - Brazilian Bank Deemed “Most Sustainable.” Banco Real of Brazil won top prize for most sustainable bank, The Financial Times reported.  At the Sustainable Banking Awards in Londong, judges said the Brazilian bank had pioneered sustainable banking in South America, putting social and environmental issues at the centre of all its business activities and involving its 32,000 staff in the strategy.
  
  
• June 4 - Kenya’s Anti-Corruption Commission Ill-Equipped to Handle Complaints.  The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission has received nearly 22,000 complaints since it was set up, but only 2,860 or 13 per cent of these have been investigated, The Nation reported.  An Office of the Ombudsman has been established to take on individual complaints. Beyond corruption, the misuse of office and unethical conduct, President Mwai Kibaki, in a gazette notice, mandated the committee to inquire into other allegations against public officers as well.
  
  
• June 4 - Development Leader Raises Concerns Over Nigeria’s Progress Fighting Graft. Special adviser to the President on the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), Dr. Tunji Olagunju, said that Nigeria lost about N3.5 trillion (US$ 8.5 million) to corruption in the last four decades, Leadership reported.  He added that the greatest challenge facing the country was how to channel her wealth from the oil and gas industry.
  
  
• June 3 - Court Lightens Sentence for Convicted Hyundai Motor Boss.  The CEO of Hyundai Motor escaped his prison sentence for his involvement in a company slush fund, but a South Korean court ordered him to undertake 300 hours of public service involving manual work for charities or protection of the environment after an earlier order had been seen as too soft, AFP reported.  Chung Mong-Koo was sentenced to three years in prison in February last year for breach of trust and embezzling 90 billion won (87.4 million dollars) in company funds through fraudulent accounting.
  
  
• June 2 – UN Audit Panel Clears Agency of Wrongdoing in North Korea.  After the United States expressed concerns over how money in the United Nations anti-poverty program in North Korea was being spent, a three member audit panel essentially cleared the U.N. agency of any wrongdoing, The Associated Press reported.  The panel, chaired by former Hungarian prime minister Miklos Nemeth, said there was no way that UNDP officials "had any way of knowing" about any misuses of its money by North Korea, including $2.7 million moved out of the country to a bank that U.S. officials called a potential money launderer.
  
  
• June 2 – UK Aid Agency Publishes NGO Grant Recipients.  The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has been reviewing hundreds of applications for approximately $260 million of grants to civil society organizations under its “Governance and Transparency Fund.”  Ethicsworld has learned that DFID has notified all of the applicants as to whether or not their proposals have been accepted. It has awarded multi-year grants to 38 organizations and a full list of these can be found at DFID’s website.
  
  
• June 2 - Co-founder of Milberg-Weiss Will Serve Prison Time for Kickback Scheme.  Mel Weiss, co-founder of securities law firm Milberg LLP, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, forced to forfeit $9.75 million and pay a fine of $250,000 for illegally paying clients to file shareholder suits that prosecutors said earned $251 million in lawyer fees, Bloomberg reported.  In his plea agreement, Weiss admitted the firm secretly paid plaintiffs through intermediaries and generally collected 10 percent of whatever legal fees the firm got, according to court papers.
  
  
• June 2 – Siemens Ex-CFO Said He Knew About Bribes. Reuters reported that Heinz-Joachim Neubuerger, former finance chief at German engineering giant Siemens, knew that paying bribes to win contracts was common practice, according a statement by a Siemens executive read out in court.  The company has so far identified 1.3 billion euros' ($2 billion) worth of suspect payments booked as consultancy fees earlier this decade.
  
  
• June 2 – Washington Mutual Introduces Key Governance Reforms.  Kerry Killinger is relinquishing his chairman role at Washington Mutual, but will stay on as chief executive, MarketWatch reported.  The U.S. lender also said the board adopted a majority voting standard and made several changes to the composition and leadership of some of its board committees.
  
  
• May 30 - Former UBS Banker Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud, Agrees to Cooperate. A former executive at Swiss bank UBS pled guilty to tax fraud and agreed to cooperate in the U.S. Justice Department's probe of wealthy Americans evading taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The banker is expected to allege that UBS had two systems for its U.S. customers, one containing accounts it officially declared to the Internal Revenue Service and the second for undeclared accounts.  Swiss banks have been reluctant to share information about their U.S. clients and used shell companies or secret accounts in Liechtenstein to avoid the IRS.
  
  
• May 29 - French Consider Curbing Executive Pay.  The French government on Thursday threatened to take further action to curb pay for bosses of poorly performing companies, calling recent rises for some executives “perfectly scandalous,” The Financial Times reported.  The French government intends to use its presidency of the European Union, which begins in July, to press for EU-wide rules governing executive pay.
  
  
• May 29 - A Corporate Governance Setback – Exxon CEO Will Maintain Dual Role. At ExxonMobil’s annual meeting, shareholders voted by a narrow margin to maintain the dual role for its Chairman and CEO, Rex Tillerson, despite high-profile support from the Rockefeller family for a separation, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Although a majority did not vote to pass the proposal, the 40% in favor of an independent chairman could be large enough to persuade company directors to make a change.
  
  
• May 29 - Nigerians Lament Lack of Government Accountability. May 29 is official “Democracy Day” in Nigeria, but many Nigerians are not celebrating.  A year after the current President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua took office, not much has changed on the ground.  An editorial in the Nigerian publication Leadership expresses the local opinion of frustration of the Nigerian government’s lack of progress and accountability to its people.
  
  
• May 28 - List of Top Anti-Money Laundering Countries Provokes Debate. Controversy is swirling around a“white list,” drawn up by the European Union member states and published by the UK Treasury, of countries with top quality anti-money laundering controls, The Financial Times reported.  Excluded from the list are a number of financial centers in British controlled territories, such as the Caribbean Islands, while Russia is included. 
  See the full list on the UK Treasury website.
  
  
• May 28 - U.S. Top Court Rules in Favor of Whistleblower Protection.  The U.S. Supreme Court effectively ruled in favor of a restaurant employee claiming he was fired in retaliation for his protests against the termination of a colleague on the basis of her race, The Wall Street Journal reported.  The Court made the decision on the basis of a 19th century civil rights law, originally intended to protect freed slaves from discrimination, interpreting the law as also a protection against retaliation.
  
  
• May 27 – CEOs Face Low Threat of Dismissal for Poor Performance, Study Says. There is little correlation between poor short-term shareholder performance and CEO dismissals over a ten-year period, according to the latest annual study of CEO turnover released by the U.S.-based management consulting firm, Booz & Company.  In the global study, Booz & Company found that the average rate of a CEO getting fired specifically for poor performance was only 2.1 percent, which disproves the notion that boards dismiss CEOs after two or three disappointing years.
  
  
• May 26 – UK Consumers Wary of Company Claims to Ethical Behavior. A London-based market research firm is announcing that a far higher proportion of consumers say they feel pressure to buy “ethical” brands, but are more skeptical of companies’ claims of ethical behavior, The Financial Times reported.
  
  
• May 26 - Former Siemens Exec Admits to Orchestrating Bribe System. Former Siemens AG executive Reinhard Siekaczek told a Munich court that he built a system of slush funds at a unit of Europe's biggest engineering company to conceal that customers were being bribed with company cash, Bloomberg reported.  Siekaczek and his accessories allegedly extracted 53.3 million euros from Siemens, prosecutors said in court documents. The money was placed in funds administered by Siekaczek and he distributed it to sales staff for bribes, prosecutors claim.
  
  
• May 25/26 - Corruption Linked to South African Violence.  Reuters reported that at least 50 people have died and more than 25,000 have fled to refugee centers from the attacks in recent days on foreign workers.
  
  South Africa’s Dispatch reported under the headline ‘Corruption the root cause of attacks’ that opposition leaders are denouncing the government. In a joint meeting United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa and provincial Democratic Alliance boss Athol Trollip blamed governmental corruption.
  
  Holomisa said corruption in the Department of Housing was the root cause of the recent brutality on South Africa’s streets. “Many people have been queuing ... since 1994 for houses ... (and) the fact that those who arrive here illegally ... immediately get houses, ahead of the people who have been queuing for a long time, has actually triggered the violence,” Holomisa said. He and Trollip also blamed the Department of Home Affairs, “They are responsible for the influx of people that are here illegally and that creates the kind of tension that we have seen,” Trollip said. He said what angered South Africans was “the fact that illegal immigrants were given preference over locals”.
  
  
• May 21 - Ex-RailCorp CEO Admits Some Managers Didn’t Care About Corruption.  Former RailCorp Chief Vince Graham testified before Australia’s Independent Commission Against Corruption that addressing safety was the top priority at that time, and issues of corruption were not given adequate attention, The Age reported.  Fraudulent practices at RailCorp led to $20 million being awarded to contractors and at least $3 million being kicked back to employees.
  
  
• May 21 - Shell Faces Significant Opposition to “Retention Payments” Plan. At Royal Dutch Shell’s annual meeting, slight less than half of shareholders failed to back a plan to award three executives $1.5 million bonuses to stay in their jobs, The Financial Times reported.  Although the group protest at Shell was not enough to halt the plan, the FT describes the rebellion as “one of the most significant for a UK company since GlaxoSmithKline’s” investor revolt in 2003.
  
  
• May 20 - UK Union Claims Structural Discrimination at Marks & Spencer.  Leaders at one of Britain’s largest trade unions are calling for a shareholder vote at Marks & Spencer to address a “structural pattern of discrimination” in the high street retailer's British supply chain, The London Times reports.  The Unite Union argues that suppliers are using agency workers on a near-permanent basis, but refusing such workers, often migrants, the same conditions as full-time staff. 
  
  

• May 20 – Russia’s Broad Corruption Crackdown Begins in the Courts.  A day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled a program to fight pervasive corruption, he ordered a review of the judicial system to stop officials and businessmen interfering in judges' decisions, Reuters reported.  Officials said they were seeking the suspension of a senior judge following media reports she had obtained three apartments at below-market rates.
  
  
• May 19 - WSJ Interviews CEO With Good Ethical Leadership.  A.J. Devanesan, the CEO of Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd, took over the ailing paper business and turned the Indonesian-based company into one of the most respected environmentally-friendly paper businesses.  The Wall Street Journal interviewed him about his management insights. 
  
  
• May 18 - Arab Corporate Governance: Positive and Negative Trends.  In two Financial Times articles, the nature of corporate boards in the Gulf States is addressed.  One FT article stated that public companies listed in Oman and Kuwait have more women on their boards than in Italy and Japan, highlighting rare gains made by businesswomen in one of the most restrictive parts of the world. Another FT article reports public company boards are overwhelmingly dominated by families, raising concerns about a lack of corporate governance in the region.  Up to 75 per cent of listed companies in the region have at least two board members from the same family.
  
  
• May 16 - Shareholder Activist on Hong Kong Exchange Board Quits. Good corporate governance activist, David Webb, has resigned from the board of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, accusing the largest listed exchange in Asia of poor management and bowing to political concerns, Reuters reported.  He believes policy at the Exchange was increasingly being devised through “backdoor” deals by inexperienced officials rather than independent boards.
  
  
• May 15 - Indonesian Government Official Claims Pay Raise Answer to Curbing Corruption.  Indonesia’s Defense Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, said elements of the security forces, particularly navy personnel, were participating in natural resources theft and were likely to continue doing so until they were paid more, The Financial Times reported.  Indonesia is losing $16bn a year in natural resources to illegal logging, fishing, and mining.  See also EthicsWorld coverage of best practices in curbing corruption in the public sector.
  
  
• May 15 - Former Manager at Swiss Bank Blows Whistle on Banking Secrecy. A Swiss banker has lodged a case with the European Court of Human Rights saying that Switzerland’s banking law permits finance institutions to cover up their "criminal support for white collar crime" such as tax evasion, and allows witnesses in legal cases to remain anonymous if bank secrecy is at risk, The Financial Times reported.  These factors mean "fair trials are not possible under the law".  The banker also said he has information on alleged tax evasion at Julius Baer, the bank where he was a manager, via the bank's Cayman Islands branch.
  
  
• May 15 - UK Moves to Improve Work-Life Balance for Employees.  The UK business secretary announced an extra 4.5m parents are to be given the right to ask their employers for flexible working arrangements, The Financial Times reported.  The right to request flexible working is to be extended to parents with children aged up to 16. The current age limit is 6.
  
  
• May 14 - After Procurement Reforms Made, World Bank Approves Loan to Philippines. The World Bank has approved a $232 million loan for a Philippine road project after putting it on hold last year following allegations of bid-rigging in the first phase of the project, Reuters reported.  The loan was approved after officials in the Philippines said they implemented sufficient anti-corruption measures.  The World Bank believes this project is not about just building roads, but to help the country implement more rigorous standards against corruption as well.
  
  
• May 14 - Former UBS Employee Indicted for Assisting in Tax Fraud. A former UBS banker was indicted for helping a an American evade taxes on $200 million he held in bank accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein, The New York Times reported.  According to the indictment, the two men created fictitious trusts and bogus corporations to conceal the ownership and control of offshore assets. They also advised clients to destroy bank records and helped them file false tax returns. The indictment is part of a widening federal investigation into whether UBS, one of the world’s largest money managers for the wealthy, helped certain clients evade taxes.
  
  
• May 14 - More British Senior Execs Admit Paying Bribes than France or Germany. The London Times reported that British executives are twice as likely to be corrupt as their French or German counterparts, research has suggested.  Ernst & Young's (E&Y) biennial survey of senior executives found that, while business practices appear to be far worse in Asia and Latin America than in Western Europe, one in eight British business leaders admit that they have paid bribes or have been involved in other corrupt dealings over the past two years, double the figures in France and Germany.
  
  
• May 13 - Exxon Takes Strong Stance Against Instituting An Independent Chairman. Exxon Mobil Corp. sent an email to institutional investors asking them to reject a shareholder measure to shake up the company by pushing it to name an independent chairman, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Shareholders backing the measure want the chairman free to focus on long-term planning, in part to provide a new perspective on the future of energy.
  
  
• May 12 - Former U.S. Official in Iraq Slams U.S. State Dept. for Complicity in Corruption. At a U.S. Senate Committee hearing, a former State Dept. official, Arthur Brennan, alleged that poor performance by his department had led to the loss of billions of dollars, and warned some of the money could be funding insurgents, AFP reported. 
  
  
• May 12 - Entangled Connections Between Kazakhstan and U.S. Could Taint Bribery Investigation.  The efforts of the Kazakhstan President’s daughter to gain information about a U.S. bribery probe involving her father through private security consultants raise concerns over conflicts of interest, The Wall Street Journal reported.  In a filing last year U.S. federal officials alleged that the $84 million stems from bribes paid by U.S. companies to Kazakhstan's president for access to Kazakhstan's rich energy reserves.  It isn't illegal to attempt to gather information on a criminal inquiry, but U.S. law enforcement and judicial officials are restricted on what they can disclose to outside parties.
• May 12 - Public Sector Transparency in China Slow to Take Effect.  Less than a month after China put into effect a new law supposed to boost government transparency most Chinese want to know one thing -- how much officials get paid, Reuters reported.  The law has encouraged Chinese to demand information about government policies, but the ruling Communist Party does not want a free-for-all, and the rules offer a broad opt-out for officials.
  
  
• May 9 - So Far, Seimens Scandal Will not Engulf Former CEO. Munich prosecutors investigating corruption at German engineering group Siemens said on Friday they had found no evidence that would warrant criminal charges against former Chief Executive Heinrich von Pierer, Reuters reported.
  
  
• May 9 - Olmert Will Resign If Indicted on Bribery Charges. As the bribery investigation of Ehud Olmert heats up, the Israeli Prime Minister has promised to step down if he is indicted on allegations that he accepted thousands of dollars from an American businessman, Voice of America reported.  Israeli media reports say investigators are also examining whether the American was a conduit for illegal campaign contributions. Israel has strict laws governing such contributions.
  
  
• May 8 - Italian Corporations Showing Signs of Change.  Some outside investors are expressing optimism over some governance reforms taking place in Italy’s traditionally closed off corporate culture, The Financial Times reported.  Although the tide of change is certainly slow, large Italian firms are starting to give shareholders outside controlling blocs easier access to seats on boards and internal audit committees reserved for their nominees.
  
  
• May 7 – New Sustainability Reporting Website Launched. The European Sustainability Reporting Association (ESRA) has launched a new website on sustainability reporting in European countries. The website gives an overview of recent developments in sustainability reporting and assurance, national government activities, future trends and challenges, and best practice examples from each country.
  
  
• May 6 – Taiwan VP Under Fire for Suspected Attempt to Defraud Government. Taiwanese prosecutors announced that Vice Premier Chiou I-jen is suspected of corruption in connection with a diplomatic scandal involving an alleged attempt to defraud the government of nearly $30 million, The Washington Post reported.  Chiou was responsible for choosing two intermediaries who were entrusted with the money to conduct diplomatic relations, but the two ended up keeping the money for themselves.
  
  
• May 6 - Aflac First American Company to Give Shareholders Say on Pay. At its annual shareholder meeting, Aflac, the large insurer, became the first major American company to give investors a vote on how senior managers are paid, The Washington Post reported.  Some experts are skeptical that the ‘Say on Pay’ movement is picking up steam.  Despite some generous pay packages this year, proposals aimed at giving stockholders an advisory vote on executive pay packages have failed to win widespread support.
  
  
• May 6 – Alstom Suspected of Paying Bribes. French prosecutors suspect engineering giant Alstom, builder of power stations and high-speed trains, of bribing foreign officials to win contracts, reported AFP.  A source close to the investigation, which began last year, reported evidence that the company had "paid hundreds of million dollars in bribes to win contracts in Asia and South America between 1995 and 2003."
  
  
• May 5 - Ethics Report from BAE Systems Admits Shortfalls. BAE Systems has admitted failing to "pay sufficient attention" to ethical standards which could have damaged its reputation, The Telegraph reported.  Former Chief Justice Lord Woolf, who was appointed by BAE to conduct the report, recommended that the company implement a global code of ethical business conduct and carry out an external audit of business conduct, and to the British government, he recommends a rehaul of bribery laws.
  
  
• May 4 - Companies See Upside of Taking Corporate Volunteerism Global.  Big name firms, such as Ernst & Young, IBM and Pfizer are seeing the benefits of their corporate volunteer program where employees are sent on intensive, months-long stints in developing markets around the globe to volunteer at schools, hospitals, start-ups, or even city councils, The Boston Globe reported.  According to company representatives, the programs help cultivate a global mindset and recruit and retain top notch employees.
  
  
• May 2 - Romania Faces $100M Suit over Bribe Solicitation. Eastern Duty Free is suing the Romanian government for $100 million over allegations that government officials demanded $2.5 million bribes in order for the company to retain its contracts it had legally won in 1992 and 1996, The Financial Times reported.  A Washington-based tribunal is set to hear incriminated tape recordings between Romanian officials and directors of EDF which could threaten the already unstable relationship between Bucharest and the European Union due to the country’s poor track record on anti-corruption policies.
  
  
• May 2 - Unilever Announces Commitment to Ethical Sourcing After Criticisms Aired. The environmental activist group Greenpeace used widely dispersed ads featuring Dove soaps and skin creams to accuse the product maker Unilever of destroying Indonesian rain forests for palm oil, a key ingredient in Dove products, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Shortly after, Unilever said it would buy palm oil only from suppliers who can demonstrate they haven't cut down forests.
  
  
• May 1 - Food Crisis Forces Big Agricultural Companies to Examine Their Social Responsibilities. News in the Wall Street Journal that big agricultural companies are making soaring profits brings forth a whole host of issues that these companies must face, such as the ethics of sky-high profits in the face of a global food crisis.  Many of these companies are being asked what they are doing to help mitigate the crisis and to reassess the decision to continue large production of biofuel which has constituted a significant portion of agricultural consumption.

 

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