|
The Morning Risk Report: Prosecutors Charge Two in Uzbek Bribery Case |
|
|
| |
|
|
Gulnara Karimova was charged alongside an executive in Russian telecommunications company for their alleged roles in a bribery scheme. PHOTO: RUSSIAN LOOK/INTERPRESS/ZUMA PRESS
|
|
|
Good morning. U.S. prosecutors charged a daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan and the former head of the Uzbek subsidiary of a Russian telecommunications company for their alleged roles in a $1 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme.
The charges, announced by the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday, come a day after the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed a related $850 million settlement with Mobile TeleSystems PJSC and an Uzbek subsidiary. The company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as well as U.S. securities laws, financial regulators said.
[Continued on...]
|
|
|
|
|
|
MTS, which is based in Moscow and trades on the New York Stock Exchange, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and pleaded guilty to charges that it paid and concealed bribes that allowed one of its subsidiaries to operate in Uzbekistan.
Gulnara Karimova, 46, the daughter of late Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. She previously served as an official in the Uzbek government. Prosecutors also charged Bekhzod Akhmedov, 44, with violating provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Mr. Akhmedov served as the general director of an MTS subsidiary that operated in Uzbekistan.
|
|
|
|
|
Paul Manafort was sentenced in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday to just under four years in prison. PHOTO: DANA VERKOUTEREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
A federal judge sentenced Paul Manafort, who served as Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman, to 47 months in prison for dodging taxes and committing bank fraud.
“Hiding money from the government so that you don’t have to pay taxes on it [amounts to] a theft of money from everyone who pays taxes,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis said. Judge Ellis also ordered Mr. Manafort to pay $25 million in restitution, but he gave the former lobbyist credit for the nine months he has already spent in prison in connection with the case.
Mr. Manafort was convicted by a jury in August of not paying taxes on more than $16 million in income he earned from advising Russia-aligned politicians in Ukraine in the early 2010s, and of lying to two banks from which he sought loans in 2015. “To say that I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement,” Mr. Manafort said.
|
|
|
|
The proposed rule would affect workers and employers in many industries, including retail, fast food, and nonprofits. PHOTO: DON EMMERT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
An additional 1.3 million Americans who work more than 40 hours a week would become eligible for overtime pay under a rule proposed Thursday by the Labor Department. The rule would increase the annual salary threshold that generally determines who qualifies for time-and-a-half pay. It would affect workers and employers in many industries, including retail, fast food, higher education and nonprofits.
The proposed rule—which would raise the salary threshold from the current $23,660 a year to $35,308—left many employers with a sense of relief, in part because the Trump administration’s proposal sets the threshold far below the $47,476 that President Barack Obama had hoped to institute. A federal judge in November 2016 halted that rule from being implemented.
|
|
|
The Future of Corporate Compliance |
|
Companies face a widening range of risks from third-party relationships at a time when many depend on complex networks of hundreds of sales agents, suppliers and business partners. Join The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones on March 12 at 8 a.m. in New York for a discussion about third-party risk, including an interview with Stephanie Davis, chief ethics and compliance officer for Volkswagen Group of America. Just added to the program: an interview with Daniel Kahn, chief of the FCPA unit at the U.S. Justice Department. Register here.
|
|
|
|
Facebook’s effort is expected to start Thursday, but it will take several weeks to take full effect. PHOTO: RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
Facebook Inc. it would make it tougher for vaccine skeptics to spread misinformation, amid criticism that the tech giant wasn’t doing enough to limit the proliferation of such content.
The company’s move follows similar efforts from other social-media firms, and rising interest from lawmakers about how best to tackle this issue. On Tuesday, an Ohio teenager testified before Congress that his mother believes the false claim that vaccines cause autism because of what she read on Facebook. Ethan Lindenberger, 18 years old, said he got vaccinated against his mother’s wishes.
Public backlash against the antivaccine movement has resurfaced in recent months due to measles outbreaks in communities across the U.S. with low vaccination rates. Lawmakers in several states have introduced legislation to bar personal and religious exemptions for vaccinations.
|
|
|
|
Family and friends who have lost loved ones to OxyContin overdoses protested in 2018 outside Purdue Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Conn. PHOTO: JESSICA HILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
-
The billionaire family that controls OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, already facing mounting legal and financial pressure, has been tossed out of a large hedge fund for its alleged role in fueling the opioid crisis. Investment entities of the Sackler family were told late last year by Hildene Capital Management that it was no longer comfortable managing their money.
-
Tesla Inc. reached an agreement with lenders in China to receive as much as a half-billion dollars to invest in its Shanghai factory currently under construction. The electric-car maker said in a securities filing that a syndicate of lenders agreed to provide up to 3.5 billion yuan ($521 million) for construction and production expenses at its so-called Gigafactory Shanghai.
-
Airbnb Inc. announced a deal to acquire hotel-booking site Hotel Tonight Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The planned transaction comes as the home-sharing company seeks to bolster its inventory and build out what it has called an end-to-end travel platform ahead of an eventual initial public offering, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
-
Digital-health startup Livongo Health Inc. is preparing for an initial public offering as soon as the third quarter of 2019, joining a horde of technology companies racing to tap the public markets.
|
|
|
|
GE has long-term care policies that cover 342,000 people andpay for nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home health aides. PHOTO: GUNTHER/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
|
|
|
General Electric Co. sought to reassure investors that it has a handle on its troubled insurance business, saying it is pushing to raise premiums paid by tens of thousands of older Americans and shifting its investments to boost returns on its reserves.
The company took the unusual step of hosting a presentation Thursday by GE’s top insurance executives to explain the business, a legacy of GE Capital’s once sprawling operations. While GE spun off or sold much of its insurance business a decade ago, it held on to policies that cover 342,000 people and are expected to pay out more than $30 billion in claims over the next two decades.
|
|
|
|
Oil pump jacks outside Odessa, Texas, in January. Investors have all but shut off the infusions of capital that have sustained the shale boom. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/BLOOMBERG NEWS
|
|
|
-
A shareholder activist will challenge PDC Energy Inc. in an effort to change the way the oil producer pays its executives, part of a broader push by investors to force U.S. energy producers to focus more on profitability than growth.
-
Mark Penn, a Madison Avenue veteran and former adviser to President Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is in talks to become chief executive of the advertising company MDC Partners Inc., part of a deal that would give his investment group a minority stake, according to people familiar with the matter. The embattled ad company has been searching for a buyer and new chief executive since last fall.
|
|
|
|
Oberlin College is one of the three colleges whose applicant data was hacked, apparently by someone who reset college staff passwords. PHOTO: TONY DEJAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
Hackers breached the system that houses applicant information for three U.S. colleges and demanded thousands of dollars in ransom from prospective students for personal information they claimed to have stolen.
The schools include Oberlin College in Ohio, Grinnell College in Iowa and Hamilton College in New York. All three use a system called Slate to track information about students who have applied for admission. Slate is owned by Technolutions Inc.
Technolutions CEO Alexander Clark said the company was aware of three colleges where an unauthorized party reset college staff members’ passwords and then used them to gain access to the database.
|
|
|
|
|