Trials against the fallen newspaper magnate, Conrad Black, began yesterday in Chicago. Black is accused of pillaging $80 million from his Hollinger media empire, which at one point of time included the Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. The charges against him include money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and racketeering. Prosecutors have alleged Black for [...]
The California Attorney General’s office on Wednesday dismissed all charges against the former HP chairman, Patricia Dunn, who was last year forced to resign under a cloud of controversy after a boardroom spying scandal that shocked the world’s biggest IT group. Last September her role in the computer and printer maker’s shady boardroom surveillance scheme [...]
Walt Disney Co. has confirmed that options at Pixar Inc. were backdated before its takeover of the computer-animation studio. However, it has said that no one now associated with Disney committed ‘any intentional or deliberate acts of misconduct’. The statement seems to suggest that Steve Jobs, a Disney director and Pixar’s founder, will not be [...]
Oracle Corp. has recently filed lawsuit against its competitor SAP on the allegations that its German competitor has clandestinely and illegally acquired proprietary materials from the Redwood City giant’s customer support Web site. Oracle has accused SAP of hacking into its computers to steal classified and confidential product information in the lawsuit. The latest development [...]
The chief executive of French oil and gas group Total Christophe de Margerie was brought under formal investigation for alleged corruption, under a criminal probe into alleged kickbacks paid by Total to win Iranian oil contracts in the 1990s. According to the reports, Total Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie was charged with abuse of company [...]
Texas regulators could fine TXU Corp. $210 million for manipulating the state’s electricity market in the summer of 2005, under a staff proposal issued on Wednesday. The fine is subject to approval by the three commissioners of the Public Utility Commission of Texas. According to the PUC staff recommendation TXU Wholesale, the arm of Dallas-based [...]
In an interesting development, frustrated Take-Two Interactive shareholders ousted five of six board members up for re-election, including the chief executive, who was booted from the boardroom and the executive suite. Dissident investors voted in five new directors at annual shareholders meeting. The new board then quickly met and named Strauss Zelnick as chairman, a [...]
Software giant Microsoft has agreed to pay $180 million to settle claims by Iowa consumers who contended they were overcharged for company products purchased between 1994 and 2006. The statewide group of consumers had claimed that Microsoft used its monopoly status to overcharge for its products including Windows and Word. Iowa Judge Scott Rosenberg has [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to file securities-fraud charges almost immediately against two former Apple executives including general counsel Nancy Heinen in connection with her role in the backdated-options controversy at Apple. The move against the two would be the first result of separate investigations into Apple’s options practices by the commission and [...]
The beleaguered chief of engineering group Siemens, Klaus Kleinfeld, has said that he will stand down later this year. Kleinfeld, who is under pressure because of corruption claims surrounding the firm, said he would not renew his contract with the industrial conglomerate when it ends at the end of September. For Kleinfeld the end came [...]
