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The Morning Risk Report: Wirecard Probe in Philippines Focuses on Two Bankers Who May Have Forged Documents
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A customer uses an ATM at a Banco de Oro branch in Manila. PHOTO: GERIC CRUZ/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Good morning. Philippine investigators say they have identified dozens of people and entities of interest in their probe into Wirecard and are focusing on two bank employees who may have facilitated a multinational accounting scandal at the insolvent German payments company.
Wirecard had claimed some $2.1 billion in cash on its balance sheet had been transferred to accounts at two Philippine banks. Both banks—Banco de Oro and Bank of the Philippine Islands—denied the accounts existed, and officials say the money never entered the country’s financial system. Wirecard later said the money probably never existed at all.
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Mel Georgie Racela, executive director of the Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Council, a government entity, said investigators are focusing on two “rogue bank employees”—one from Banco de Oro and one from Bank of the Philippine Islands. He said the council’s initial findings indicated they forged the documents that Wirecard used to mislead auditor Ernst & Young GmbH about the existence and location of the missing funds.
The two bank employees, who according to the initial findings were acting “in exchange for financial gain,” have been fired. Mr. Racela said law-enforcement agencies would study the council’s findings and consider possible criminal charges.
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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The Justice Department said Taro Pharmaceuticals will pay a pay a $205.7 million criminal penalty to settle allegations it participated in a conspiracy to fix prices on generic drugs. PHOTO: ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Taro Pharmaceuticals will pay a $205.7 million criminal penalty to settle allegations it participated in a conspiracy to fix prices on generic drugs, the Justice Department said Thursday. The company reached a deferred-prosecution agreement in which it is cooperating with the federal government’s yearslong investigation, and agreed to pay restitution as well as $213.3 million in civil damages to settle claims related to federal health-care programs.
The Justice Department alleged the company participated in two criminal antitrust conspiracies that each involved a competing generic drug manufacturer and various executives. The department said Taro admitted that its sales “affected by the charged conspiracies” exceeded $500 million.
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A former Unaoil Group manager was sentenced to five years in prison in the U.K. after he was found guilty of conspiring to bribe public officials in Iraq to secure a $55 million contract there, the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office said. Ziad Akle, a 45-year-old former Iraq territory manager for the oil-services company who was convicted last week on two counts of conspiracy to give corrupt payments, is expected to appeal the conviction.
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It’s unnecessary for the CFTC to essentially be the world’s policeman for all swaps,’ said CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert. PHOTO: EVAN AGOSTINI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The U.S. derivatives regulator voted to abandon its effort to regulate trading that happens overseas, where it had worried that interconnections between big banks in the global market could transmit risk to the U.S. economy.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s plan will effectively cede oversight of that activity to overseas regulators whose rules are deemed sufficient. The plan, which passed along party lines on a 3-2 vote, represents a win for banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup that dominate the $558 trillion global swaps market and have structured their trading in places like London to minimize U.S. oversight.
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More than two dozen entrepreneurs, investors and deal advisers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said Amazon appeared to use investment and deal-making to help develop competing products. In some cases, Amazon’s decision to launch a competing product devastated the business in which it invested. In other cases, it met with startups about potential takeovers, sought to understand how their technology works, then declined to invest and later introduced similar Amazon-branded products, according to some of the entrepreneurs and investors.
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Beijing ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, a city in southwestern China, retaliating against Washington’s decision to shut down the Chinese consulate in Houston.
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Carlos Ghosn’s son sent about $500,000 in cryptocurrency payments to one of the Americans accused of aiding the former Nissan Motor Co. chief’s dramatic escape from Japan, prosecutors said in a new court filing. The payments were made from January to May of this year, after Mr. Ghosn fled from Japan to Lebanon, prosecutors said.
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Aluminum customers are receiving tariff exclusions on billions of pounds of imported metal that U.S. mills say are undermining the domestic market the duties were supposed to revive.
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Scandals over medical equipment being purchased at huge markups have been a feature of pandemic-related corruption throughout Latin America. Amid the economic crisis companies are devoting fewer resources to internal oversight, which has led to more cases of firms price-gouging governments that are desperate to purchase medical equipment, Geert Aalbers of the Brazilian branch of Control Risks, a global consulting company, says.
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Airbus has agreed with the Spanish and French governments to change some financial-support agreements in an attempt to bring an end to a yearslong trade dispute with the U.S. The European plane maker said Friday that it thought the move would put it in full compliance with World Trade Organization guidelines and remove justification for U.S. tariffs.
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Paul Dabbar, the Energy Department's under secretary for science. PHOTO: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
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A group led by the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Chicago plans to develop a nationwide quantum internet that could be functional in about a decade and with the potential to securely transmit sensitive information related to national security and financial services.
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A Dutch politician was among 36 Twitter users who had their direct messages accessed in a high-profile hacking attack last week, the company said Wednesday. There were 130 accounts targeted in total and—other than the Dutch politician—there are no signs that any other current or former politicians had their messages accessed, Twitter said.
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French videogame maker Ubisoft, known for ‘Prince of Persia’ and other popular franchises, revealed changes including an overhaul of its code of conduct. PHOTO: JORDAN MERCHNER/UBISOFT/ALBUM/ZUMA PRESS
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Videogame maker Ubisoft Entertainment promised to overhaul its workplace culture following allegations of misconduct and inappropriate behavior that have led several senior executives to leave the company in recent weeks.
In a call with investors, Ubisoft Chief Executive and co-founder Yves Guillemot said he was “committed to implementing profound changes across the company to improve and strengthen our workplace culture.”
In June, users of social media, including some claiming to be former Ubisoft employees, called out former and then-current employees by name, accusing them of sexual harassment and assault.
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Troy Young, the powerful head of Hearst Magazines, has resigned a day after the publication of a scathing profile in which several women at the company accused him of making lewd and sexist comments, the company said Thursday.
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Data suggest new layoffs are being offset by hiring and employers recalling workers, though at a slower pace than a few weeks ago. PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Filings for weekly unemployment benefits rose for the first time in nearly four months as some states rolled back reopenings because of the coronavirus pandemic, a sign the jobs recovery could be faltering.
Initial unemployment claims rose by a seasonally adjusted 109,000 to 1.4 million for the week ended July 18, the Labor Department said Thursday, halting what had been a steady descent from a peak of 6.9 million in late March, when the pandemic and business closures shut down parts of the U.S. economy.
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Elon Musk’s Tesla aims to deliver 500,000 cars and sport-utility vehicles this year, though the company said economic uncertainty will make that more difficult. PHOTO: RINGO H.W. CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Elon Musk’s plan to build Tesla’s fourth vehicle assembly factory represents the next phase in his effort to reshape the auto maker to rapidly increase the number of electric cars it can sell each year as it races to compete with global rivals.
The chief executive’s announcement that work has already begun to prepare building a factory on more than 2,000 acres outside of Austin, Texas, marks one of the few new major car assembly plants to be built in the U.S. in the past decade, and comes while the rest of the auto industry is navigating through a global pandemic and fears of a prolonged recession.
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American Airlines and Southwest Airlines said they were tempering expectations for an air-travel recovery, as mounting coronavirus cases have driven down bookings by as much as 80% in some parts of the U.S.
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AMC Entertainment Holdings is pushing back the reopening of its U.S. theaters to mid-to-late August, after a number of summer blockbusters delayed their release dates because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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