ABB

ABB Vetco Gray
ABB Vetko UK

2004

$5,900,000

$10,500,00

"Swiss engineering company ABB Ltd. and two of its subsidiaries agreed Tuesday to pay a total of $16.4 million to settle U.S. criminal and civil charges alleging they bribed government officials in Nigeria, Angola and Kazakhstan. The company paid more than $1.1 million through U.S.-based and foreign subsidiaries for the purpose of "obtaining and retaining business," federal officials claimed. U.S. authorities said ABB settled a civil suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by agreeing to pay $5.9 million in "disgorgement and prejudgment interest" to the Securities and Exchange Commission and change its business practices. SEC officials said ABB notified the government of the violations and cooperated in the investigation. Simultaneously, subsidiaries ABB Vetco Gray, based in Houston, and ABB Vetco UK, based in Aberdeen, Scotland, appeared in U.S. District Court in Houston and agreed to pay a total fine of $10.5 million, the Department of Justice said. The fines came after each company was convicted of two counts of violating the bribery section of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." (Feds fine ABB $16M in bribery case, By Leticia Williams, CBS.MarketWatch.com, July 6, 2004).

Abbott Laboratories

1999

$100,000,000

"[R]ecord fine of $100 million to the Food and Drug Administration to settle a long-running investigation into the company's manufacturing plant in Lake County, Ill. Abbott also agreed to remove 125 products from the market and stop making them. (Abbott to Pay $622 Million to Settle Inquiry Into Marketing, By Gardiner Harris, New York Times, June 27, 2003).

Abbott Laboratories

2003

$622,000,000

"Abbott Laboratories said yesterday that it planned to pay $622 million to settle an investigation into sales practices for liquids needed to feed the seriously ill. The company said in a statement that it would take a charge of 34 cents a share in the second quarter to cover a settlement of a "previously disclosed civil and criminal investigation" of its Ross Products division. Abbott earned $592.3 million, or 38 cents a share, in the second quarter of last year. Melissa Brotz, an Abbott spokeswoman, declined yesterday to discuss details of the investigation, which was disclosed in August 2001. At the time, news reports described it as focusing on marketing tactics in which the company gave tubes and pumps used to deliver liquid food directly into patients' digestive tracts in exchange for large orders of the liquids. Some of the hospitals and nursing homes that received the free equipment were suspected of billing Medicaid and Medicare, the government health insurance programs for the poor and the elderly, for the tubes and pumps, according to the reports." (Abbott to Pay $622 Million to Settle Inquiry Into Marketing, By Gardiner Harris, New York Times, June 27, 2003).
On Oct. 3, 2001, TAP Pharmaceutical Products, a joint venture of Abbott and Tadeka Chemical Industries, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and paid $875 million - still the record for a health fraud fine - to settle accusations related to its marketing of the cancer drug Lupron. TAP was accused of giving Lupron to doctors who the company knew would bill Medicaid and Medicare for the cost of the drug. SEE TAP PHARMACEUTICAL.

Abbott Laboratories

2005

$18,000,000

"Abbott Laboratories and Geneva Pharmaceuticals Inc. have agreed to a $30.7 million nationwide settlement to refund customers and third-party payers in 18 states who claimed that the two companies had conspired to engage in anticompetitive conduct selling a drug that treats hypertension and enlarged prostate. The settlement agreement, reached earlier this month, is still subject to final court approval. The commercial version of the drug, Hytrin, is manufactured by Abbott, which will pay $18 million in the case. The generic version, called terazosin, is made by Geneva... The settlement will benefit consumers who purchased terazosin products between Oct. 15, 1995 and March 7, 2005. Between 1999 and 2001, a number of consumers filed lawsuits against Abbott and Geneva. These cases were consolidated into a single lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida. According to the federal lawsuit, Abbott wrongfully paid Geneva to delay introduction of its generic version of Hytrin and took other steps to delay competition from lower-priced generic versions of its product, harming consumers." (CBS MarketWatch, March 31, 2005)

Abbott Laboratories Johnson & Johnson
Menarini Diagnosticos
Pharmaceutica Quimica
Bayer

2005

16 million Euros total

"Portugal's antitrust regulator said it had fined five major US and European drug companies a total of 16 mln eur for working together to artificially fix prices.
The five firms -- Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson of the United States, Germany's Bayer AG, Italy's Menarini Diagnosticos and Switzerland's Pharmaceutica Quimica -- formed a cartel during 36 bidding processes to supply 22 hospitals in Portugal, it said. The goal of the companies was to 'prevent, restrict or falsify in a significant way competition by fixing prices', the competition authority said in a statement.
Abbott Laboratories was hit with the largest fine, 6.8 mln eur, for 34 infractions while Johnson & Johnson, which cooperated with antitrust regulator in its investigation, received the smallest fine, it added. The firm will have to pay 360,000 eur for 36 infractions. The antitrust regulator opened its investigation after a public hospital in Coimbra, Portugal's third-largest city, complained that the five firms had all proposed the same price for the same drug." (AFX News Limited, Oct 14, 2005).

Abercrombie & Fitch

2004

$40,000,000

"Abercrombie & Fitch has agreed to pay $40 million to black, Hispanic and Asian employees and job applicants to settle a class-action federal discrimination lawsuit that accused the clothing retailer of promoting whites at the expense of minorities..." (AP/USAToday.com, Nov 16, 2004).

ABN AMRO Bank

2005

$80,000,000

U.S. bank regulators and supervisors announced Monday that ABN AMRO Bank N.V. will have to pay an $80 million penalty in connection with findings the bank failed to comply with U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
The Federal Reserve, New York and Illinois state bank supervisory agencies, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said they had found defects in the bank's internal controls against money laundering in branches in New York and Chicago.
ABN AMRO, the largest Dutch bank, participated in transactions that violated U.S. sanctions laws and failed to report suspicious transactions, the agencies said in a statement.
The U.S. bank regulators and supervisors said De Nederlandsche Bank N.V., the regulator of Dutch banks, had also participated in issuing the consent order.
Regulators are also requiring ABN AMRO to improve compliance and risk management systems to ensure full oversight and compliance with U.S. laws. (Reuters / CNN Money, Dec 19, 2005)

Adelphia

2005

$715,000,000

Adelphia Communications said today that after months of negotiations, it had agreed to pay $715 million to settle fraud charges with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As the settlement is structured, the Rigas family, which once controlled Adelphia, will provide the government with roughly $1.5 billion in assets: largely cable systems that the family owned privately. John Rigas and his son Timothy were convicted last summer of looting Adelphia of $2.3 billion in assets and misrepresenting Adelphia's financial health to investors.
Now Adelphia will turn over $715 million to a victim's fund that will pay the money to Adelphia investors...
delphia declared bankruptcy three years ago. It then put itself up for sale and last week Comcast and Time Warner, the nation's largest and second-largest cable companies, agreed to buy Adelphia for $17.6 billion in cash and stock. Adelphia, with 5.3 million cable subscribers, is the nation's fifth-largest cable operator.
As the settlement is structured, investors get part of the funds, but the company, which was also misled by the Rigases, gets the balance of the $1.5 billion in assets that are being turned over by the family.. (New York Times, April 25, 2005).

Adest

subsidiary of MONY

2005

Fourteen brokerage firms are paying fines totaling more than $34 million in deals with industry regulators over payments they received to push certain mutual funds...
The firms include six subsidiaries of the embattled insurance company American International Group...
The companies have agreed to pay the civil fines in settlements with NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization. NASD accused the firms of receiving payments from mutual fund companies in exchange for preferential treatment for the funds, creating a potential conflict of interest.
The companies neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in agreeing to pay the fines, which ranged from $286,415 for Advest Inc. to $6.6 million for Royal Alliance Associates Inc., one of the A.I.G. subsidiaries.
Advest is a unit of the MONY Group.
At issue are "shelf space" arrangements between fund companies and brokerage firms, under which the funds pay brokers for slots on lists of recommended buys for customers. (AP / New York Times, June 9, 2005).

Ahold

2005

$1,100,000,000

"Royal Ahold which owns the Stop & Shop and Giant supermarket chains in the United States along with other retail operations worldwide, said Monday it has agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle a class action lawsuit brought by U.S. shareholders after its 2003 accounting scandal.
Peter Paul de Vries of the Dutch Shareholders' Association, which helped broker the deal, said the proposed settlement "was not of such a size that it will hurt Ahold" but it would help the company "leave a black chapter behind it."
Ahold's top lawyer Peter Wakkie said it is a coincidence that the amount of the settlement paralleled that of the scandal, in which Ahold overstated earnings by more than 1 billion euros in 1999-2002, mostly by inflating sales at its U.S. Foodservice subsidiary.
Ahold's former top management resigned in February 2003 after the company made the fraud known, and its shares lost two-thirds of their value overnight. The company eventually restated earnings for 2002 to a loss of 4.33 billion euros ($5.01 billion). It avoided bankruptcy by selling assets and by getting an emergency credit line from its banks.
The agreement requires approval from a court in the Baltimore district, where the case was filed, and from holders of at least 180 million shares out of around 800 million shares that qualify...
Ahold said the settlement represented the last "significant" civil cases it faces in the scandal. But Entwistle said he would push ahead with plans to sue Ahold's former accountants Deloitte & Touche for $2 billion to $3 billion for its actions...
Two former top managers at Columbia, Md.-based U.S. Foodservice pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the United States, while the former chief financial officer and chief marketing officer have pleaded innocent.
Former Ahold CEO Cees Van der Hoeven, former CFO Michiel Meurs and two other top executives are expected to face criminal charges in the Netherlands in May 2006. All have said they are innocent of wrongdoing." (AP / USA Today, Nov 28, 2005)

AIG

(American International Group)

2003

$10,000,000

A.I.G. Settles Fraud Charges With S.E.C. By REUTERS, New York Times, Sept 11, 2003. "U.S. market regulators on Thursday said insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG.N) agreed to pay $10 million to settle fraud charges stemming from its role in accounting violations at cell phone distributor Brightpoint Inc.The Securities and Exchange Commission said the fraud charges against AIG stemmed from its role in fashioning and selling what the agency referred to as an ``insurance'' product that helped Brightpoint overstate its earnings by 61 percent. In a statement, AIG said it consented to the SEC order to settle the matter but did not admit or deny the agency's findings. It said it acknowledges that mistakes were made in underwriting the policy in question and that it has taken steps to correct those mistakes. In a separate statement, Brightpoint said the complaint alleged that the company ``committed fraud through the purchase and use of a purported insurance policy to misrepresent Brightpoint's losses as insured losses.'' Brightpoint, based in Plainfield, Indiana, agreed to pay a $450,000 civil penalty.
Insurer Agrees to Pay Penalty in Fraud Case, By Joseph B. Treaster, New York Times, Sep 12, 2003.

AIG

2004

$126,000,000

"Insurance giant American International Group Inc., which is paying $126 million to settle federal authorities' allegations of aiding accounting fraud by other companies, has accepted an independent monitor but will avoid criminal prosecution. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department announced Tuesday that they had reached formal settlements with AIG, which disclosed last week it had agreed to make the payments. The insurer agreed to pay $46 million in an accord with the SEC to settle allegations of civil securities fraud over three 2001 transactions it made with PNC Financial Services Group Inc. that allegedly helped the regional bank artificially inflate its earnings. The money will go to shareholders injured by the alleged fraud. AIG also agreed to pay $80 million in an accord with the Justice Department that allows it to avoid prosecution and resolve an investigation into the PNC matter and one involving cell phone distributor Brightpoint Inc. New York-based AIG neither admitted nor denied the allegations in agreeing to pay the $126 million, which is comprised of fines, restitution and interest... AIG is said to have improperly sold insurance contracts to the companies to help them smooth earnings volatility from quarter to quarter. The relatively new practice, which is legal in principle and common in the insurance industry, has recently come under scrutiny by regulators for how it is executed..." (AP / ABCNews.com, Nov 30, 2004).

AIG

including subsidiary Royal Alliance Associates

2005

Fourteen brokerage firms are paying fines totaling more than $34 million in deals with industry regulators over payments they received to push certain mutual funds...
The firms include six subsidiaries of the embattled insurance company American International Group...
The companies have agreed to pay the civil fines in settlements with NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization. NASD accused the firms of receiving payments from mutual fund companies in exchange for preferential treatment for the funds, creating a potential conflict of interest.
The companies neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in agreeing to pay the fines, which ranged from $286,415 for Advest Inc. to $6.6 million for Royal Alliance Associates Inc., one of the A.I.G. subsidiaries.
Advest is a unit of the MONY Group.
At issue are "shelf space" arrangements between fund companies and brokerage firms, under which the funds pay brokers for slots on lists of recommended buys for customers. (AP / New York Times, June 9, 2005).

AIG

2006

$1,600,000,000

"[T]o settle allegations it engaged in securities fraud and bid-rigging and failed to make contributions to state workers' compensation funds...[I]ncludes $800 million the SEC will use to compensate investors deceived by alleged accounting violations that the company disavowed in a major restatement last year. Thirty-five states will share in $42 million in tax reimbursements on workers' compensation premiums... The settlement focuses primarily on a fall 2000 reinsurance deal that then-AIG Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg allegedly initiated with Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary General Re to beef up AIG's long-term loss reserves and help prevent a fall in its stock price. Last week, federal prosecutors indicted three former top General Re executives and AIG's former head of reinsurance..." (Washington Post, Feb 10, 2006).

Ajinomoto

199?

$10,000,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Alabama Power Co

2006

$200,000,000

"The Alabama Power Company has agreed to pollution controls and other measures expected to cost more than $200 million to settle a case brought the federal government under the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday announced the partial settlement of a case alleging violations of the against the Alabama Power Company James H. Miller, Jr. Plant, a coal-fired power plant near West Jefferson, Alabama.
Under the consent decree filed in federal court, Alabama Power is required to reduce emissions from the Miller plant of two harmful pollutants - sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) - by 28,000 tons per year." (Environmental News Service, April 26, 2006.

Alliance Capital Management Holding LP

$250,000,000

Fines and restitution to settle charges over improper trading,

Allied Clinical Laboratories

199?

$5,000,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Altria Group

see also Philip Morris

Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA)

199?

$3,750,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

AOL - America Online

2005

$1,250,000

"America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider, will pay $1.25 million in penalties and change some customer-service practices to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. About 300 consumers had filed complaints with Spitzer's office accusing AOL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner (TWX), of ignoring their requests to cancel service and stop billing. The company, with 21 million subscribers nationally, rewarded employees who were able to retain subscribers who called to cancel their Internet service. For years, AOL had minimum retention or "save" percentages that customer-service personnel were expected to meet, investigators said. An employee could earn tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses if he or she could dissuade half of callers from ending service..." (USA Today, Aug 24, 2005).

AOL - America Online

2006

$2,600,000,000

A judge has approved a $2.65 billion class-action settlement of claims that advertising revenue was counted in a fraudulent manner prior to the merger of America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc. U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram signed a ruling approving the deal Thursday. She had given the settlement tentative approval in September 2005. The settlement resulted from lawsuits brought by shareholders who complained that AOL improperly accounted for dozens of advertising transactions, inflating revenue for 15 quarters between 1998 and 2002. AOL and Time Warner announced they were merging in early 2000. AOL's steadily declining dial-up subscriber base became a drain on Time Warner, though the Internet provider has risen in stature with the recent boom in online advertising. According to the deal approved by Kram, Time Warner will pay the bulk of the settlement while its auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, will pay $100 million... [Kram] said the settlement had received overwhelming support by nearly all of the estimated 600,000 claimants. The lead plaintiff was the Minnesota State Board of Investment, which manages the investment of retirement fund assets of the Minnesota State Retirement System, Teachers Retirement Association and the Public Employees Retirement Association. The Minnesota board, with total assets exceeding $50 billion, lost an estimated $249 million and had the largest financial stake in the litigation. (AP / Mercury News, April 8, 2006).

American Airlines

2004

$3,300,000

"American Airlines Inc. and Boeing Corp. agreed to pay more than $3.3 million in fines for violating federal aviation regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday. American paid $2.5 million to settle FAA allegations that the airline and two of its carriers - American Eagle and Reno Air - violated rules governing flight operations and maintenance. The company didn't admit that it had done anything wrong..." (Government Settles With American, Boeing. Guardian (UK), June 1, 2004).

American Airlines

2004

$3,000,000

"American Airlines has agreed to pay a $3 million penalty to settle charges that it violated a 1994 consent decree with U.S. antitrust authorities, the Justice Department said Friday. The settlement bars American from using travel dates when either initiating or matching fare increases. (Reuters, Aug 6, 2004).

American Electric Power

2007

$4,600,000,000

"Largest Environmental Settlement In U.S. History Will Reduce Smog And Acid Rain Across Northeast. The agreement with American Electric Power Co., based in Columbus, Ohio, struck just as the company was to defend itself in court, ends an eight-year battle over reducing smokestack pollution that drifted across Northeast and mid-Atlantic states... By agreeing to the settlement, American Electric Power will cut hundreds of thousands of tons of pollution from 16 coal burning plants in five states... Eight states downwind of those plants joined the suit, saying they bore the brunt of AEP's emissions, including almost 850,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a year, a major contributor to acid rain... AEP must also pay a $15 million civil fine and $60 million in cleanup and mitigation costs to help heal polluted land in the Shenandoah National Park and waterways including the Chesapeake Bay... Once AEP has fully installed the pollution control equipment required by the settlement, the U.S. estimates that the annual benefits to public health will include approximately $32 billion per year saved in avoided health-related costs associated with respiratory and cardiopulmonary illnesses, including asthma and heart attacks, according to a statement released by the Department of Justice. One study blames power plant pollution for than half a million asthma attacks, 38,000 heart attacks, and 60,000 premature deaths every year.... In all, the costs and civil fines will far exceed any company payout in an environmental case, the attorneys said. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, by contrast, yielded $1 billion in restoration and restitution costs, although Exxon Mobil Corp. estimates it has so far spent $3.5 billion and faces an additional $2.5 billion in criminal penalties... The case against AEP began in 1999 when eight states and 13 environmental groups joined the Environmental Protection Agency's crackdown on energy companies accused of rebuilding coal-fired power plants without installing pollution controls as required. In states like New York, officials complained that acid raid linked to sulfates and nitrates from coal-fired plants were eating away at landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty... AEP has more than 5 million customers in 11 states... As part of the settlement, AEP will clean up 46 coal-fired operations in 16 of the plants in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. Morris also noted the risk of AEP paying a far greater fine if the company had fought the case in court and lost. AEP said it has paid nearly $2.6 billion since 2004 on equipment to cut emission in coal-fired plants in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia and will be spending an additional $1.6 billion for environmental controls in two more plants. Both costs are part of the company's $5.1 billion plan reduce the emissions of its eastern region by 2010. The states involved in the lawsuit were: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont... In all, the government brought eight lawsuits against polluters accused of violating the Clean Air Act. Four are still ongoing, and AEP was considered the largest polluter of the bunch, government attorneys said. Tuesday's settlement will reduce pollution by 1.6 billion pounds each year through 2018." (CBS/AP, Oct 9, 2007)

American Express Financial Advisors

2004

$3,700,000

"Fifteen brokerage firms accused of overcharging large-scale investors in mutual funds have reached settlements with regulators that will require them to pay civil penalties totaling some $21.5 million, the regulators announced Thursday. The settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers also will require the brokerages to make refunds to customers. The fines levied on the firms are equivalent to the estimated amount they overcharged customers over a two-year period, the regulators said. The firms include American Express Financial Advisors, which agreed to pay a $3.7 million fine; Raymond James Financial Services, which is paying $2.6 million; and Wachovia Securities, $4.8 million. The SEC and the NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing group, have found that brokerage firms - apparently inadvertently - often fail to give large-scale investors in mutual funds the discounts they are owed." (15 brokerages settle fund discounts case: Firms accused of overcharging agree to pay $21.5 million. Associated Press, MSNBC News, Feb 12, 2004).

American Express Financial Advisors

2005

some portion of $21,250,000

"... NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization, disclosed that Citigroup, American Express Financial Advisers and J. P. Morgan Chase & Company had agreed to pay a total of $21.25 million for reported violations in sales of mutual funds." (AP / New York Times, March 24, 2005).

American Express Financial Advisors

2005

$7,400,000

"New Hampshire regulators and American Express Financial Advisors Inc. have reached a record $7.4 million settlement over allegations that the company illegally rewarded its financial advisers who steered clients toward underperforming, in-house mutual funds. The New Hampshire Bureau of Securities Regulation had sought $17.5 million in penalties from the Minneapolis-based subsidiary of American Express Co. The bureau had alleged that in one sales contest, American Express Financial Advisors offered advisers who sold the most company funds a free one-year lease on a Mercedes Benz. State Securities Director Mark Connolly said in a statement Tuesday the settlement was the largest securities enforcement action in state history, surpassing the $5 million settlement reached with Tyco International in 2002... American Express has announced plans to spin off its financial advisory, probably later this year... In addition to $5 million in fines and penalties, the settlement requires American Express Financial Advisors to pay New Hampshire investors $2 million and to reimburse the bureau $375,000 for costs of the investigation." (ABC News, July 12, 2005).

AOL

see America Online

Aqua Leisure

1996

$6,000,000

Aqua Leisure & Simon Fireman [6mo house arrest] - US Dept of Justice civil and/or criminal actions relating to illegal corporate domestic money-in-politics activity (use of corporate funds and money laundering). http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/cgi-win/x_vce.exe

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)

199?

 $100,000,000

ADM paid a $100 million fine and three of its executives --- Mark Whitacre, Mick Andreas and Terrance Wilson --- were sent to prison for fixing the price of lysine, a feed additive for livestock and poultry. http://www.ea1.com/CARP/

Archer Daniels Midland
Cerestar Bioproducts
Hoffmann-La Roche
Jungbunzlauer
Haarmann & Reimer

2001

$120,500,000 total

"The European Commission fined Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM), Jungbunzlauer AG, Haarmann & Reimer Corp and Cerestar Bioproducts B.V. a total of $120.5 million for participating in a price-fixing and market-sharing cartel in citric acid." (Corporate Crime Reporter, Dec 5, 2001).

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)

2004

$400,000,000

to settle price-fixing suit (June 21, 2004).

Argenbright

(subsidiary of Securicor)

2000

$1,550,000

"Argenbright, a leader in the privatized airport security business in the United States. Argenbright controls roughly 40 percent of the market. Its employees screen passengers and carry-on bags for the airlines, which have been delegated these responsibilities by the federal government. ... [Argenbright] pled guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal regulators and paid $1.55 million in fines in connection with charges that it failed on a massive scale to do background checks on security screeners employed at Philadelphia International Airport, failed to provide them with required training, and then lied to federal authorities about it." (Multinational Monitor Dec 2001).

Arizona Chemical Co.

199?

$2,500,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Arthur Anderson

2001

 $7,000,000

Penalty for helping Waste Management overstate its income in order to boost WM's value. WMX overstates pretax income by more than $1 billion for 1992 through 1996. Arthur Anderson did not admit or deny guilt in the settlement with the SEC and was never charged with violating auditor independence rules. (StopWMX website)

Arthur Andersen

 2005

 $65,000,000

"A federal judge gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a deal under which auditor Arthur Andersen LLP will pay $65 million to settle allegations it failed to protect investors from WorldCom's historic accounting fraud." (AP / USAToday.com, April 26, 2005).

AstraZeneca

2003

$355,000,000

AstraZeneca pleaded guilty [in June 2003] to a federal felony charge of health care fraud and agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges that it had encouraged doctors to defraud the federal government by billing it for drugs that AstraZeneca gave to doctors free. (Abbott to Pay $622 Million to Settle Inquiry Into Marketing, By Gardiner Harris, New York Times, June 27, 2003).

Banc One

2001

$1,800,000

"Banc One Capital Markets Inc., a bond dealer, agreed today to pay a $1.8 million fine to settle charges of poorly managing its accounting system. According to the consent agreement, in which Banc One neither admits nor denies the charges, the accounting irregularities caused a shortfall in the amount of capital the firm is required to have on hand to do business. The shortfall ranged at times from $520 million to $1.27 billion. The accounting problem also led Banc One to incorrectly compute the amount it was required to hold in a special reserve bank account that is designed to protect customers funds, by segregating them from those of the firm. The deficiencies in that account ranged from $380 million to $1.05 billion, according to a letter detailing the agreement. Although extremely technical in nature, the net capital requirement rule has been found by courts to be "one of the most important weapons in the [Securities and Exchange Commission's] arsenal to protect investors," the consent letter said." (Washington Post, April 6, 2001; p. E02).

Bank of America

2004

$675,000,000

"Bank of America Corp. and FleetBoston Financial Corp. reached a record $675 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over illegal mutual fund trading. Bank of America will make $250 million in restitution and $125 million in penalties, while Fleet will make $70 million in restitution and $70 million in penalties, Spitzer's office said in a statement. Bank of America and Fleet also agree to cut fees by $160 million over five years. The penalty is the largest since Spitzer announced an investigation of the $7.5 trillion fund industry in September. Bank of America is buying FleetBoston for about $48 billion. ``Getting this out of the way will help them focus on merging the two companies together,'' said Robert Maneri, who helps manage about $50 billion, including Bank of America and FleetBoston shares, at Victory Capital Management in Cleveland. Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, 56, fired at least five executives and set aside $100 million for fines since Spitzer accused the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company of trading abuses in September. Spitzer and the SEC have filed civil complaints against eight firms in the biggest fund-trading probe ever. Eight members of Bank of America's Nations Funds board of directors ``will resign or otherwise leave the board in the course of the next year'' for approving a measure that allowed a hedge fund to conduct ``company sanctioned'' market timing in its funds, according to the agreement." (Bank of America, Fleet in Record $675 Mln Fund Pact., Bloomberg, March 15, 2004).

Bank of America

2004

$10,000,000

"Bank of America Corp., the No. 3 U.S. bank, was fined a record $10 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission because it lied to the regulator during a probe into trading by the bank and a former employee. ``We cannot tolerate regulated entities not complying with their obligations under the law'' to cooperate with investigations, said Antonia Chion, the SEC enforcement official overseeing the case. The fine imposed on the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank is the largest ever levied by the SEC for failing to produce documents during an investigation, SEC spokesman John Nester said in an interview. Calls to CEO Kenneth Lewis and Chief Financial Officer James Hance weren't returned. The SEC's claims may undermine steps by Lewis to restore the bank's integrity after it was ensnarled in the collapse of Parmalat Finanziaria SpA and accused of improper mutual fund trading. ``The allegations you've seen don't represent the way Bank of America does business,'' Lewis said in September of the mutual fund investigation. ``This headline risk is a distraction and it takes management's time,'' said Hilary Hayes, who helps manage $4 billion, including 600,000 Bank of America shares, at Victory SBSF Capital Management in New York. `Hide and Seek' The fine stems from the SEC's probe into allegations that a senior Banc of America Securities LLC executive traded on unreleased research reports by the firm's own analysts. The bank failed to provide documents it requested and lied about their availability, the SEC said. Banc of America Securities wasn't part of the $1.4 billion global stock research settlement last year between Wall Street firms and regulators. ``Playing hide and seek with the government I don't think is ever a good strategy,'' said James Cox, a corporate and securities law professor at Duke University. ``Bank of America's approach in defending itself in this case was probably not a wise one and that is certainly being borne out.'' Bank of America, which expects to complete its $48 billion purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. next month, neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, and neither the bank nor the SEC named the employee whose records were at issue. Bank spokeswoman Shirley Norton said in a prepared statement that the company ``believes the problems addressed by the SEC are isolated'' and that it has taken measures to prevent their recurrence. In December, the National Association of Securities Dealers fined former Banc of America analyst Andrew Hamerling $125,000 for publishing biased research on telecommunications companies such as SBC Communications Inc. and giving advance notice of his recommendations to favored clients. Hamerling settled the case without admitting or denying the allegations. Both the NASD and the SEC say their investigations are continuing. (Bank of America Fined Record $10 Mln in Trading Case. Bloomberg, Mar 10, 2004).

Bank of America

2005

$375,000,000

"Three Bank of America Corp. brokerage units agreed to pay $375 million to settle market timing charges, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday. The SEC charged that Banc of America Capital Management LLC, BACAP Distributors LLC, and Banc of America Securities LLC entered into "improper and undisclosed agreements" that let favored large investors engage in rapid short-term, market timing and late trading in Nations Funds mutual funds. Separately, Bank of America's Fleet mutual fund unit agreed to pay $140 million to settle market timing charges, while five former executives were individually charged with market timing violations, the SEC said." (Reuters/New York Times, Feb 9, 2005).

Bank of America

2005

$460,500,000

"Bank of America has agreed to pay $460.5 million to settle with investors who bought Worldcom's stock and bonds before the telecommunications giant filed for bankruptcy in 2002. The settlement was struck between Bank of America and Alan G. Hevesi, the comptroller of New York state and trustee of the states' Common Retirement Fund. Mr. Hevesi is the lead plaintiff in the case and represents investors who lost billions when Worldcom collapsed. The bank said in a statement that it was in the best interests of its shareholders to put the litigation behind it. In settling, the bank denied that it had violated any law. Lawyers for the New York fund have argued that the banks that sold Worldcom securities to investors did not conduct appropriately thorough investigation into the company's financial condition before the securities sales. For example, Worldcom sold $12 billion in bonds in May 2001; just over a year later the company made the largest bankruptcy filing in history. The banks have said that they relied on financial statements vetted by Worldcom's auditor and were duped by an accounting fraud at the company that many experts missed. Bank of America is the second Worldcom bank to settle with the New York fund. Citigroup, Worldcom's lead banker, paid $2.65 billion to settle with the fund last May. Bank of America's settlement uses the same formula computed by Citigroup in its deal, even though Bank of America's securities unit was just one of many banks that helped to sell Worldcom's bonds to the public. The bank's desire to settle under the same terms agreed to by Worldcom's biggest supporter on Wall Street seems to indicate an eagerness by Bank of America to avoid a jury trial in the case..." (New York Times, March 3, 3005).

Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)

1991

$200,000,000

For violating American banking laws, "part of a global investigation of fraud and money laundering." (Lockboxes, Iraqi Loot and a Trail to the Fed, By Timothy L. O'Brien, New York Times, June 6, 2004).

Banc One

2004

$50,000,000

$40,000,000

"Bank One agreed Tuesday to pay $90 million to resolve allegations over trading abuses in its mutual-fund unit, becoming the last of four firms originally implicated in the fund industry scandal to settle with state and federal regulators. The Chicago-based financial services giant said it would pay $50 million in investor restitution and fines to reconcile a case the Securities and Exchange Commission had brought. In addition, Mark Beeson, former CEO of One Group mutual funds, will pay $100,000 in civil penalties and is barred from the mutual fund industry for two years. He is also prohibited from serving as an officer and director of a mutual fund or investment advisor for three years, the SEC said. In a separate settlement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office, Bank One agreed to reduce management fees over five years in a deal valued at $40 million. Bank One was one of the firms implicated last September in Spitzer's $40 million settlement with hedge fund Canary Capital Partners. According to the SEC, Bank One Investment Advisors Corp. allowed Ed Stern, head of Canary Capital, to engage in short-term trading of One Group funds..." (Bank One settles mutual fund probe, Agrees to $90 million in penalties over trading abuses, By Luisa Beltran, CBS.MarketWatch.com, June 29, 2004).
"In a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Attorney General's Office, Bank One Investment Advisors, BOIA, the unit of Bank One that oversees One Group funds, agreed to pay a $40 million penalty and $10 million disgorgement in an administrative proceeding related to trading of One Group funds. In a separate settlement with the New York AG, Bank One Investment Advisors agreed to reduce management fees by at least $8 million per year over the next five years. BOIA neither admitted nor denied the findings in the SEC's report. Mark Beeson, the president and CEO of BOIA until October 2003, agreed to a $100,000 penalty and a three-year ban from the securities industry. One Group was one of four fund groups implicated in the ongoing mutual fund trading scandal revealed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in September 2003. Prior to its merger with J.P. Morgan Chase on July 1, Bank One was the last of the four to settle." (Forbes Wall Street Fine Tracker).

Banker's Trust

199?

$60,000,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

BASF Aktiengesellschaft

199?

$225,000,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Bayer

2003

$250,000,000

"Pharmaceutical companies Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline have each agreed to pay Medicaid abuse settlements to resolve allegations they overcharged the government insurance program for the poor. Bayer will pay the government about $250 million and Glaxo will pay about $90 million for failing to give the Medicaid program the lowest price charged to any consumer, according to the agreement negotiated with the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston and Medicaid fraud investigators around the country... he Globe reported that Bayer is pleading guilty to violating the Federal Prescription Drug Marketing Act and paying a criminal fine of about $5 million for alleged overcharges involving its antibiotic Cipro and its high blood pressure drug Adalat, citing unnamed federal investigators and others familiar with the case. Glaxo, which was not accused of criminal wrongdoing, is paying a civil fine for overcharges involving its anti-depressant Paxil and nasal allergy spray Flonase. The investigation focused on allegations that the companies hid their lowest prices from Medicaid by repackaging or relabeling their drugs under a middleman's name. The middleman then sold the drug at a deep discount not reported to the government. By law, the companies are required to report all their prices and then pay Medicaid a rebate if they charge anyone less than the government... All 50 states will share the settlement money. A whistleblower who alerted federal officials will also receive a share." (AP, Drug Makers Settle Medicaid Overcharges, April 18, 2003.

"Some 20 lawsuits filed against two dozen pharmaceutical companies by citizens and states across the country have been consolidated into one case before a federal judge in Boston. The suit alleges that the companies inflated the prices the government paid for prescriptions for the elderly and disabled through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The Boston investigation of Cipro unfolded at the same time that Bayer was selling 100 million Cipro tablets to the government to use in the wake of the anthrax bioterror scare in fall 2001. Prescriptions for the drug soared after the government said it was the best treatment for anthrax. Under a government threat to break Bayer's patent on the drug because of the national emergency, Bayer agreed to provide it at nearly half the usual government price." (Big Fines Seen in US Probe of 2 Drugmakers, By Alice Dembner, Boston Globe, April 16, 2003).

Bayer

2004

$66,000,000

Price-Fixing Investigations Sweep Chemical Industry: "A two-year-old price-fixing probe that began in an obscure corner of the chemical industry has snowballed into a series of international investigations involving industry giants such as Dow Chemical Co, DuPont Co. and Bayer AG, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The widening web of cases arose from aggressive use by prosecutors of amnesty grants for whistle-blowers, which has rivals competing to be first to report wrongdoing and avoid criminal penalties. U.S. and European investigators currently are looking into alleged conspiracies to fix prices in a half-dozen chemicals used in plastics, rubber and synthetic materials in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan. The commodities are used in industries from automobiles to furniture and flooring. At least four grand-jury investigations stemming from the investigations currently are under way in San Francisco. Among the latest markets under scrutiny are a widely used plastic, urethane, and a synthetic rubber known as neoprene, lawyers close to the case said. In pursuing the alleged conspiracies, U.S. and European prosecutors are showing that granting amnesty from criminal charges to the first company to blow the whistle on a conspiracy can be a potent weapon against cartels. Companies granted amnesty can escape huge fines and sometimes avoid jail time for executives.So far, the inquiry has resulted in one guilty plea and a $50 million fine for UniRoyal and its parent, Crompton Corp. of Middlebury, Conn., in the case that initially spurred the investigations. In a plea agreement announced in April, Crompton acknowledged conspiring with others to artificially boost prices of chemicals used to make rubber, a $1 billion annual market, between 1995 and 2001. It had been fingered for illegal conduct by a rival that had gone to the Justice Department." (Dow Jones Newswires, June 22, 2004).

Bayer

2004

$33,000,000

"Bayer AG's U.S. unit agreed to plead guilty and pay a $33 million fine for conspiring to fix prices of a chemical used to make plastic grocery bags, shoe soles and other consumer products.
The guilty plea by Bayer Corp. would be the first in a U.S. government investigation into price fixing for the chemical additive used in a variety of products, the Justice Department said in Washington. In July, Bayer AG, based in Germany, agreed to pay a $66 million fine to settle a U.S. charge it conspired to fix the price of chemicals used to make rubber products.
The latest scheme took place between 1998 and 2002 with another producer of aliphatic polyester polyols made from adipic acid, court papers said. The government didn't identify the other producer of the chemicals, which keep plastic bags from sticking and also are used to make automotive coatings, filters, belts, seals, gaskets, textiles, adhesives and sound-proofing material." (Bloomberg, Sept 30, 2004).

Bayer
Abbott Laboratories Johnson & Johnson
Menarini Diagnosticos
Pharmaceutica Quimica

2005

16 million Euros total

"Portugal's antitrust regulator said it had fined five major US and European drug companies a total of 16 mln eur for working together to artificially fix prices.
The five firms -- Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson of the United States, Germany's Bayer AG, Italy's Menarini Diagnosticos and Switzerland's Pharmaceutica Quimica -- formed a cartel during 36 bidding processes to supply 22 hospitals in Portugal, it said. The goal of the companies was to 'prevent, restrict or falsify in a significant way competition by fixing prices', the competition authority said in a statement.
Abbott Laboratories was hit with the largest fine, 6.8 mln eur, for 34 infractions while Johnson & Johnson, which cooperated with antitrust regulator in its investigation, received the smallest fine, it added. The firm will have to pay 360,000 eur for 36 infractions. The antitrust regulator opened its investigation after a public hospital in Coimbra, Portugal's third-largest city, complained that the five firms had all proposed the same price for the same drug." (AFX News Limited, Oct 14, 2005).

Bayer

2006

$55,300,000

$18,000,000

Bayer AG has agreed to pay $18 million (€14.3 million) to settle claims it conspired with other manufacturers to inflate the price of certain plastics, the second multi-million-dollar settlement the company has made this year regarding its polymer operation. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum in Kansas City, Kansas, approved the settlement, which covers the company's sales of polyester polyol-based products between Jan. 1, 1998 and Dec. 31, 2004.
The agreement also requires Bayer, headquartered in Germany, to cooperate with plaintiff attorneys as they continue their class-action lawsuit against former co-defendants Uniroyal Chemical Co. and Chemtura Corp., formerly known as Crompton Corp. Lungstrum also agreed to dismiss defendants Rhein Chemie Corp. and Rhein Chemie Rheinau GmbH, subsidiaries of Lanxess Corp., which was spun off from Bayer last year.
In August, Lungstrum approved a $55.3 million (€44 million) settlement by Bayer in a separate case involving the sale of polyether polyol. Bayer also agreed to help attorneys against former co-defendants BASF Corp., BASF AG, The Dow Chemical Co., Huntsman International Holdings LLC and Lyondell Chemical Co.
A Bayer spokesman provided a company statement Wednesday confirming the two settlements but declined to comment further. An attorney for the polyester plaintiffs didn't immediately return a phone call for comment.
Bayer disclosed in March that it had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department seeking information about its manufacture and sale of polyurethane products called MDI and TDI, along with other products.
Court documents say Bayer, Dow, BASF, Huntsman and Lyondell control the entire MDI and TDI markets and 75 percent of production of polyether polyol, a polyurethane material that is mixed with other substances to make foams used in furniture, automobile seats and other products.
Federal authorities two years ago consolidated 16 cases filed across the country against polymer manufacturers by customers who alleged the companies had gotten together to fix the price of urethane and urethane chemicals. (AP, Oct 18, 2006).

Bear Stearns

2002

$50,000,000

FOR MORE INFO SEE ENTRY: Citigroup - 2002 - $300,000,000

Bear Stearns

2003

 $80,000,000

$1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Unveiled. "As part of the settlement, two former research analysts -- telecommunications expert Jack Grubman of Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney and Internet expert Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch & Co. -- agreed to pay $15 million and $4 million, respectively, and be permanently barred from the securities industry. The $1.4 billion settlement amount is among the highest ever imposed by securities regulators, and Citigroup's $400 million share of that settlement is the highest ever imposed on an individual firm. It follows a nearly two-year investigation started by Spitzer and later joined by the SEC and other state attorneys general.... Adding to Citigroup's $400 million, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston will each contribute $200 million toward the global settlement. The other firms -- Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Lehman Brothers Inc.; J.P. Morgan Securities Inc.; Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.; UBS Warburg LLC; and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. -- will pay between $125 million and $32.5 million. About $387 million will go toward a fund to benefit customers of the firms. Another $387 million will be paid to the states. In addition, the firms will pay some $433 million to fund independent research and $80 million to promote investor education. ($1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Unveiled, by Tamara Loomis, New York Law Journal, April 29, 2003). See also SEC Releases Brokerage Settlement Details. Associated Press, April 28, 2003.

"Six months after securities regulators and 10 of Wall Street's biggest banks signed a landmark $1.4 billion conflict-of-interest settlement, a federal judge approved the deal Friday, clearing the way for harmed investors to recoup $399 million... The SEC, industry self-regulatory groups and 25 other states eventually joined the investigation. Firms agreeing to settle included Merrill, Citigoup Inc., Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, Credit Suisse First Boston, Lehman Brothers, Piper Jaffray and UBS Warburg. Spitzer has gone on to lead regulatory probes into alleged trading abuses by mutual fund firms. In both the research and mutual fund cases, Spitzer seized on behavior long recognized by Wall Street but largely ignored by regulators. As part of the "global settlement," the firms were ordered to pay $894 million in penalties and disgorgement as well as $432.5 million to fund the purchase and distribution of independent research and $80 million to fund investor education programs." ($1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Approved: Federal Judge Accepts Conflict-of-Interest Deal. By Ben White, Washington Post, Nov. 1, 2003, p. E1).

The $1.4 billion settlement is divided so:
Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney: $400,000,000
Credit Suisse First Boston: $200,000,000
Merrill Lynch: $200,000,000
Morgan Stanley: $125,000,000
Goldman Sachs Group: $110,000,000
Lehman Brothers Holdings: $80,000,000
J.P. Morgan Chase: $80,000,000
Bear Stearns: $80,000,000
UBS Warburg: $80,000,000
U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray: $32.500,000

Bear Wagner Specialists

2004

"Five New York Stock Exchange trading firms have agreed to pay $242 million to settle charges of violating federal securities laws and exchange rules, the NYSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday. The SEC, after a joint investigation with the Big Board, said the five firms -- Bear Wagner Specialists, Fleet Specialist Inc., LaBranche & Co., Spear, Leeds & Kellogg Specialists and Van der Moolen Specialists USA -- violated securities laws and exchange rules by executing orders for their accounts ahead of orders for the public between 1999 and 2003. The firms -- known as market "specialists" for their roles bringing together buyers and sellers at the exchange -- violated their basic obligation to match orders from the public with other similar orders, and not to fill the orders via trades from their own accounts, the SEC and NYSE said. The firms agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the allegations, the SEC said, adding that the investigation will continue, possibly targeting individuals... Under the agreement, $87.7 million of the settlement may be distributed to customers hurt by the firms' actions, according the SEC. The rest of the fines will go to the SEC and NYSE..." (NYSE firms pay $242M in trading case. The SEC says five trading firms agree to settle allegations of improper trading activities. CNN/Money, March 30, 2004).

Beaulieu of America Inc

1998

$1,000,000

Dept of Justice civil and/or criminal actions relating to illegal corporate domestic money-in-politics activity. (PoliticalMoneyLine website)

Beverly Enterprises

2000

$175,000,000

"Beverly Enterprises, the nation's largest nursing home chain, will pay $175 million to resolve civil and criminal charges that it defrauded Medicare. Beverly agreed to plead guilty to mail fraud and false statement charges filed in federal court in San Francisco. In addition to the $175 million in payments, the company agreed to divest itself of 10 nursing homes. The $175 million represents the largest settlement ever in a nursing home case... Federal officials alleged that the Ft. Smith, Arkansas based company in 1992 began to charge Medicare improperly for the salaries of nurses caring for non-Medicare patients at 10 homes owned by Beverly-Enterprises-California and other Beverly facilities. Instead of recording the true time spent on Medicare patients, Beverly-California fabricated nursing cost figures based on set formulas designed to maximize profits while avoiding detection by Medicare auditors. The phony cost figures were backed by false documents, such as phony nurse sign-in sheets, that appeared to support Beverly's claims for payment. "By its conduct, Beverly victimized not only the Medicare program, but American taxpayers whose dollars fund government health care programs," says U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller III... While the company acknowledges that "errors were made by individual employees" in the submission of 10 cost reports to Medicare, it says that the 10 cost reports represent .8 percent of the 1,370 Medicare cost reports filed by Beverly subsidiaries in 1996 and 1997 and .2 percent of the 4,680 cost reports filed by Beverly subsidiaries for the period investigated by the government." (Multinational Monitor, March 2000)

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois

199?

$4,000,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Blue Shield of California

199?

$1,500,000

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html

Boeing

1998

$10,000,000

In 1998, Boeing was fined $10 million because it shared sensitive technologies without an export license with its Russian, Ukrainian, Norwegian and German partners in the Sea Launch space rocket joint venture. (Seattle Times, April 8, 2006).

Boeing

2001

$4,300,000

In 2001, Boeing was fined $4.3 million for technology transfer without an export license to Australia, Malaysia, Turkey and Singapore on its Wedgetail 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft program. (Seattle Times, April 8, 2006).

Boeing

2001, 2000, 1999

$100,000,000 plus

More than $100 million government-related fines and settlements levied against Boeing in the past three years by the U.S. Departments of Justice, State, Defense and the Federal Trade and Securities Exchange commissions, for bribery, kickbacks, fraud, and military contract and export law violations. (SeattleWeekly)

Boeing

2003

$32,000,000

In 2003, Loral and Hughes Space and Communication were fined $32 million for illegal export of satellite technology to China. By then that Hughes division had been acquired by Boeing, though the violations happened before the acquisition. (Seattle Times, April 8, 2006).

Boeing

2004

up to $72,500,000

"Boeing has agreed to pay from $40.6 million to $72.5 million to settle a gender-discrimination lawsuit covering as many as 29,000 current and former female employees. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman approved the settlement this morning, ending more than four years of litigation. The lawsuit, which excluded executives and engineers, covers women who worked for Boeing's Puget Sound facilities after Feb. 25, 1997... [P]laintiffs... will receive at least $500 and possibly more depending on their salaries and length of employment. The class-action suit, filed in 2000, claimed that women employees at nearly all levels were denied equal pay and other job opportunities. Boeing has denied wrongdoing, but also has agreed to change its salary and performance review practices. .. " (Boeing to pay female workers up to $72.5 million in settlement, By Shirleen Holt, Seattle Times, July 16, 2004).

Boeing

2006

$15,000,000

[L]argest fine ever levied on a company for violation of the Arms Export Control Act, settling a dispute with the State Department over the unlicensed foreign sales of commercial airplanes carrying a small gyrochip with military applications. In addition to a $15 million fine, a consent decree signed March 28 imposes oversight requirements on Boeing because three previous settlements of similar alleged violations didn't result in full compliance with export controls...
The maximum fine was $43 million...
According to the State Department charges, between 2000 and 2003 Boeing shipped overseas 94 commercial jets with the QRS-11 gyrochip embedded in the flight boxes, including 19 to China. Export of listed defense items to China is specifically proscribed. The State Department had determined in 1993 that the chip, used in the guidance system of the Maverick missile, "has significant military utility." That put the devices on a list of products that require a license for foreign sales.
Boeing continued the exports even after the State Department told the company to stop. Boeing ignored those orders after its lawyers advised that the State Department "did not have jurisdiction" to regulate the exports. The dispute between Boeing and the State Department reached a head in the fall of 2003, when two 737 jets were released to China only after President Bush signed a last-minute waiver after a request from then-Chief Executive Phil Condit.
That produced a political settlement the following January in line with Boeing's view of the issue: QRS-11 chips remained on the list of military items but were reclassified as commercial items when integrated into commercial-jet flight boxes.
After that, export of the chips inside Boeing commercial jets was no longer an issue. The case remained alive because of Boeing's previous "blatant disregard" of the State Department. In addition to unauthorized export, State charged Boeing with misrepresentation of facts and false statements.
Boeing has violated arms-export-control rules on three previous occasions.
In 1998, Boeing was fined $10 million because it shared sensitive technologies without an export license with its Russian, Ukrainian, Norwegian and German partners in the Sea Launch space rocket joint venture.
In 2001, Boeing was fined $4.3 million for technology transfer without an export license to Australia, Malaysia, Turkey and Singapore on its Wedgetail 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft program.
In 2003, Loral and Hughes Space and Communication were fined $32 million for illegal export of satellite technology to China. By then that Hughes division had been acquired by Boeing, though the violations happened before the acquisition.
In the March consent decree, the State Department points out that more than $9 million of those previous fines were returned to Boeing to fund remedial compliance measures that would avoid future violations.
Because that didn't work, the new settlement requires Boeing to appoint an independent external officer to oversee companywide export-control compliance for two years, as well as a senior manager internally. And it must retain an outside firm to audit implementation. (Seattle Times, April 8, 2006).

Boeing

2006

$615,000,000

Boeing has agreed to pay $615 million to settle the federal investigations into contracting scandals at the company, The Wall Street Journal reported online Sunday night.
Details in The Journal story were confirmed to The Seattle Times by a person familiar with the proposed settlement. A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment.
Boeing will pay what The Journal termed "the largest financial penalty ever imposed on a military contractor for weapons-program improprieties," but it will not face criminal charges or make any admission of wrongdoing.
The deal would bring to a close government investigations the company has faced on two fronts.
One involves contracts tainted by the illegal recruitment of Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun, which led to the 2003 firing of both Druyun and Boeing Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears and the resignation of CEO Phil Condit. Druyun and Sears served prison time.
The other scandal involved Lockheed Martin documents improperly acquired by Boeing when the companies were competing for government rocket launches in the late 1990s.
In the pending settlement, The Journal said, prosecutors have agreed not to move against Boeing or executives as long as the company and senior management don't break the law in the next two years.
The agreement doesn't cover certain midlevel employees of Boeing's rocket-making unit.
The Journal story said Boeing and the Justice Department have agreed on major points of the settlement, though the details have not been formally approved yet.
Boeing, The Journal said, will acknowledge improper behavior by a few employees but won't acknowledge that prosecutors have evidence to justify seeking felony charges against the company. And the final agreement will not use the phrase "criminal penalty," but rather "monetary penalty."
Aside from ending a set of investigations that loomed over Boeing's federal contracting efforts, the settlement will make it more difficult for Lockheed to pursue its separate civil claims against Boeing.
Any admission of wrongdoing on Boeing's part would have benefited Lockheed's case, which is pending. And the federal settlement means the government won't be filing any more documents that could be useful to Lockheed's case. (Seattle Times, May 15, 2006).

Boise Cascade

2002 March

$4,350,000

Agreed to pay $4.35 million in civil penalties and spend $18 million to cut emissions from plywood and particle board plants.

Borden

199?

$4,000,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Bridgestone-Firestone

2004

$149,000,000

"A Texas state court judge Monday approved a $149 million settlement of 30 class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of tire owners against Bridgestone-Firestone North American Tire. The settlement, approved by State District Judge Donald Floyd, comes more than three years after the 2000 recall of 14.4 million Firestone tires amid safety concerns. More than 100 objectors had contested the settlement. The lawsuits resolved as part of the settlement include those filed by Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT customers whose tires were among those investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2000. The settlement calls for Firestone to pay an estimated $70 million to replace tires, $41 million to manufacture certain tires with materials that provide better high speed capacity, $15.5 million on a consumer education and awareness campaign and $19 million for attorneys fees. The company also has paid $3.5 million to notify class members of the settlement plan... The 45 named plaintiffs each could receive up to $2,500. Those who are not named but owned one of 22 brands of Bridgestone/Firestone tires between 1991 and 2001 qualify to have their tires replaced. The settlement could affect an estimated 15 million drivers and involve about 60 million tires..." ($149M Firestone Settlement OK'd, AP, CBSNews.com, March 15, 2004).

Bristol-Myers Squibb

199?

$3,000,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Bristol-Myers Squibb

2004

$300,000,000

Bristol-Myers Squibb has reached a $300 million settlement on a shareholder class-action lawsuit over accounting matters and its relationship with ImClone Systems, the company said Friday. Bristol-Myers, which admitted no wrongdoing in the case filed in U.S. District Court in New York, said it would make the payment out of reserves it already has set aside. "The proposed settlement does not resolve the pending governmental investigations and other private litigation related to wholesaler inventory issues and other accounting matters," the company said in a written statement. An increase in reserves for litigation by $320 million was disclosed earlier, the company said. Bristol-Myers is helping ImClone market its anti-cancer drug Erbitux in the United States. ImClone has been the target of federal investigations and was the stock at the center of the insider-trading scandal that ensnared Martha Stewart..." (CBS.MarketWatch.com, July 30, 2004).

Bristol-Myers Squibb

2004

$150,000,000

"Pharmaceuticals giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. today agreed to pay $150 million to settle government fraud charges for inflating revenues and earnings through an industry practice called "channel stuffing." The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement — one of the largest ever for financial fraud — after probing the company's aggressive tactics to pump up sales figures by $1.5 billion in 2000 and 2001 to meet revenue and earnings forecasts. The scheme involved selling its wholesalers additional amounts of products before they were needed — a practice called "channel stuffing' — so New York-based Bristol-Myers could meet internal sales and earnings targets it had presented to investors. When earnings still fell below expectations, the government said the company improperly tapped into financial reserves to boost income." (Los Angeles Times, Aug 4, 2004).

"For several years, Bristol-Myers paid wholesalers to stockpile goods, which the company booked as legitimate sales. The practice is called channel stuffing.
The result of the deception, which went on from at least 1999 to 2002, was that Bristol's bottom line looked good. Investors got a rosy picture. But it could only continue for so long. There was a limit to how much wholesalers could store.
Ultimately, Bristol came clean and restated its earnings in 2002 and 2003, admitting it had inflated revenues by about $2.5 billion and profits by about $900 million during the period in question.
The end of that chapter in Bristol's 118-year history apparently is in sight, with an agreement being negotiated between Bristol-Myers, which is based in New York, and the United States attorney in Newark, Christopher J. Christie. Mr. Christie's office has been investigating Bristol-Myers for several years and is said to be close to a deferred prosecution agreement that will allow Bristol to pay about $300 million in fines..." (New York Times, June 7, 2005).

Browning-Ferris

199?

$1,500,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad

2002

$2,200,000

Settlement with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "The government had sued, saying the railroad tested, or sought to test, 36 of its employees, using blood samples, without their knowledge or consent. According to testimony, the company performed the tests in the hopes of claiming that the workers' arm injuries stemmed from a rare genetic condition instead of from work-related stress on muscles and nerves. The railroad denied that it violated the law, but agreed not to use genetic tests in future medical examinations." (New York Times, October 10, 2005).

C.R. Bard

199?

$30,900,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

2003

$80,000,000

"Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will pay $80 million to settle charges it helped Enron Corp. in the fallen energy trader's massive accounting fraud, U.S. regulators said on Monday. The Securities and Exchange Commission also said it sued three current or former CIBC executives in the case. Two of them have settled and will pay a total of more than $600,000, the SEC said as it moved its wide-ranging Enron probe forward. The SEC said it charged CIBC, a major Canadian financial concern, and the three executives with "having helped Enron to mislead its investors through a series of complex structured finance transactions over a period of several years."... In a separate action, Canada's bank regulator and the U.S. Federal Reserve said they jointly settled with CIBC over Enron dealings... The $80 million payment to the SEC will consist of $37.5 million in repayment of ill-gotten gains, a $37.5 million penalty and $5 million in interest, the SEC said. Hunkin said CIBC's settlement agreement also resolved an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. "The department has agreed not to prosecute CIBC with respect to certain transactions involving CIBC and Enron," CIBC said. In return, CIBC said, it agreed to continue cooperating with the Justice Department, to exit certain business activities and to adopt new policies and procedures. In July, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay more than $300 million combined to settle charges related to Enron. Merrill Lynch & Co. settled with the SEC in March for $80 million in an Enron case...." (Bank to pay $80 million on Enron: Settles charges it helped in fraud. By Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters, Chicago Tribune, Dec 23, 2003).

Canary Capital Partners

2003

$40,000,000

Canary Capital Partners. The investigation into Canary concluded Wednesday morning with the firm, run by Edward J. Stern, has agreed to fork over $40 million related to illegal mutual fund trades. The trading tactics used by Stern guided the fund to market-beating returns from mid-1998 to the end of 2002. According to the complaint, Stern used prohibited "market timing" and "late trading" tactics to game certain mutual funds. But what comes as a surprise is the extent to which the evidence points to complicity by the asset managers and trade processors on the inner workings of each mutual fund. (Eliot Spitzer Finds His Canary, by Ari Weinberg, Forbes Magazine, Sept 3, 2003).

Cargill

2004

$24,000,000

"Cargill Inc., the largest private U.S. company, said Thursday it agreed to pay $24 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that sought billions of dollars and accused the company of fixing prices of a common food sweetener. The Minneapolis-based agribusiness conglomerate still denies the claims made in the lawsuit, filed in 1995 by 18 companies that manufacture soft drinks, canned good, baked goods and dairy products. "We agreed to settle only after assessing the costs of further litigation," Cargill said in a statement. "We did not engage in any illegal activity." That leaves co-defendants Archer Daniels Midland Co. and A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co., a unit of Britain-based Tate & Lyle Plc, to face a trial set to start in September on claims they fixed prices for high-fructose corn syrup. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs had said he would seek damages of $1.4 billion, an amount that could be tripled to $4.2 billion under federal antitrust laws for an alleged conspiracy that the plaintiffs say began in the late 1980s and ended in mid-1995. ADM and Staley officials were not immediately available for comment." (Cargill to settle suit for $24 million. ADM and Staley still facing $1.4B lawsuit charging they conspired to fix sweetener prices. Reuters, CNNMoney.com, March 11, 2004).

Case Corporation

199?

$1,000,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Cerestar Bioproducts
Hoffmann-La Roche
Jungbunzlauer
Haarmann & Reimer
Archer Daniels Midland

2001

$120,500,000 total

"The European Commission fined Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM), Jungbunzlauer AG, Haarmann & Reimer Corp and Cerestar Bioproducts B.V. a total of $120.5 million for participating in a price-fixing and market-sharing cartel in citric acid." (Corporate Crime Reporter, Dec 5, 2001).

Chevron

199?

$6,500,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Chiquita Brands International

2007

$25,000,000

"Chiquita Brands International admitted in U.S. court [in March 2007] that it paid $1.7 million to Colombia's brutal right-wing militias over the course of eight years. The company said it did so to protect its employees and agreed to pay a $25 million fine...
Chiquita pulled out of Colombia in 2004 by selling its Banadex subsidiary to a local company for $43.5 million...
The right-wing United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) joined the ranks of Al Qaeda and Hamas on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations in September 2001. Colombia's two main leftist rebel groups, known as FARC and ELN are also on the list...
At least three multinationals operating in Colombia — coal mining giant Drummond, Nestle, and Coca-Cola — have been targeted in civil lawsuits in the U.S. that claimed these companies paid paramilitaries to kill or intimidate union workers. The Chiquita case could pave the way for investigations into other companies, as well...
In 2001, more than 3,000 Central American rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition were unloaded at a Colombian port by Banadex and eventually ended up in the hands of paramilitary forces, according to an investigation by the Organization of American States..." (Christian Science Monitor, April 11, 2007)

ChoicePoint

2005

$15,000,000

"The Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday that it had reached a $15 million settlement with ChoicePoint Inc., the commercial data broker that disclosed last February that thieves had duped the company into turning over private data on more than 145,000 people. That revelation touched off a year of national debate over data privacy and security and generated a raft of tough new state laws on data security as well as several bills in Congress. The settlement includes $10 million in fines — the largest civil penalty ever imposed by the agency — as well as $5 million in consumer compensation, stemming from accusations that its handling of consumer data and its inadequate security procedures amounted to violations of consumer privacy rights and federal law. The company, based in Alpharetta, Ga., will also be required to overhaul its security program — something already well under way, the company said yesterday — and submit to independent audits of its procedures every two years for the next 20 years. The settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing." (New York Times, Jan 27, 2006)

Citigroup / Salomon Smith Barney

2003

 $400,000,000

"Six months after securities regulators and 10 of Wall Street's biggest banks signed a landmark $1.4 billion conflict-of-interest settlement, a federal judge approved the deal Friday, clearing the way for harmed investors to recoup $399 million... The SEC, industry self-regulatory groups and 25 other states eventually joined the investigation. Firms agreeing to settle included Merrill, Citigoup Inc., Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, Credit Suisse First Boston, Lehman Brothers, Piper Jaffray and UBS Warburg. Spitzer has gone on to lead regulatory probes into alleged trading abuses by mutual fund firms. In both the research and mutual fund cases, Spitzer seized on behavior long recognized by Wall Street but largely ignored by regulators. As part of the "global settlement," the firms were ordered to pay $894 million in penalties and disgorgement as well as $432.5 million to fund the purchase and distribution of independent research and $80 million to fund investor education programs." ($1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Approved: Federal Judge Accepts Conflict-of-Interest Deal. By Ben White, Washington Post, Nov. 1, 2003, p. E1).

The $1.4 billion settlement is divided so:
Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney: $400,000,000
Credit Suisse First Boston: $200,000,000
Merrill Lynch: $200,000,000
Morgan Stanley: $125,000,000
Goldman Sachs Group: $110,000,000
Lehman Brothers Holdings: $80,000,000
J.P. Morgan Chase: $80,000,000
Bear Stearns: $80,000,000
UBS Warburg: $80,000,000
U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray: $32.500,000

Citigroup

2002

$300,000,000

"The nation's top brokerages agreed Friday to pay nearly $1.43 billion to resolve charges they gave biased ratings on stocks to help win investment banking business. It was one of the largest penalties ever levied by securities regulators. The settlement calls for 10 firms, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston, to pay heavy fines, sever the links between research and investment banking, and fund independent stock research for investors that would complement their own analysts' work. In agreeing to the fines, the firms would neither admit nor deny charges that they had misled investors, even though authorities uncovered e-mails in which analysts privately derided stocks they were touting to the public. Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney brokerage unit will pay the heaviest fine: $300 million. But Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill won a guarantee he would not be prosecuted. Credit Suisse will pay $150 million. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank and UBS Paine Webber will each pay $50 million, according to a joint statement by regulators. In May, Merrill Lynch, the nation's largest brokerage firm, agreed to a settlement that included a $100 million fine and the separation of its analysts from investment banking. In addition to the $900 million in fines, the 10 firms also will pay $450 million over five years to pay for independent research for investors and $85 million for a nationwide investor education program. The amounts were based on evidence collected against the firms, officials said." (Michael Gormley, Brokerages Settle Conflict Allegations, Associated Press, Dec 20, 2002).
"Under terms of the settlement with state and federal regulators, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston and eight other brokerages agreed in principle to strengthen separation of research analysts and bankers working on underwriting deals, pay $900 million in fines and restitution, $450 million to fund independent research and $85 million for investor education.... Separately, Jack Grubman, the former telecommunications analyst for Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney, agreed to a $15 million fine and a lifetime ban from the securities industry. As part of the broad settlement, stock analysts like Grubman will be shut out of investment road shows and deal pitches, or meetings where brokers recommend deals to potential clients. So-called spinning, directing shares of lucrative initial public offerings to favored clients, will also be banned. "This agreement will permanently change the way Wall Street operates," said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who led regulators in the settlement talks along with officials from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock exchanges and securities regulators from other states. But some who wished for more draconian measures against the brokerages will be disappointed by the terms of the settlement and the amount that the brokerages will have to pay. Citigroup, for example, averaged about $65 million in profit each business day in the third quarter, meaning one good week would cover its entire payment. Under the settlement, about half of the $900 million will go to the states, while half will go to the SEC. The commission is working on setting up a restitution fund for investors, said sources familiar with the matter." (Kevin Drawbaugh and Brian Kelleher, Brokerages to Pay $1.4 Bln in Settlement, Reuters, Dec 20, 2002).

Citigroup

2002

$215,000,000

Citigroup paid $215 million to resolve U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that its subsidiary The Associates engaged in systematic and widespread deceptive and abusive lending practices (Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 http://www.multinationalmonitor.org )

Citigroup

 2003

$1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Unveiled. "As part of the settlement, two former research analysts -- telecommunications expert Jack Grubman of Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney and Internet expert Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch & Co. -- agreed to pay $15 million and $4 million, respectively, and be permanently barred from the securities industry. The $1.4 billion settlement amount is among the highest ever imposed by securities regulators, and Citigroup's $400 million share of that settlement is the highest ever imposed on an individual firm. It follows a nearly two-year investigation started by Spitzer and later joined by the SEC and other state attorneys general.... Adding to Citigroup's $400 million, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston will each contribute $200 million toward the global settlement. The other firms -- Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Lehman Brothers Inc.; J.P. Morgan Securities Inc.; Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.; UBS Warburg LLC; and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. -- will pay between $125 million and $32.5 million. About $387 million will go toward a fund to benefit customers of the firms. Another $387 million will be paid to the states. In addition, the firms will pay some $433 million to fund independent research and $80 million to promote investor education. ($1.4 Billion Wall Street Settlement Unveiled, by Tamara Loomis, New York Law Journal, April 29, 2003). See also SEC Releases Brokerage Settlement Details. Associated Press, April 28, 2003.

Citigroup

2004

$70,000,000

"Citigroup Inc. announced today that it had reached a settlement in an investigation of its lending practices and that it was selling its holdings in a Saudi bank. Citigroup, the world's biggest financial services company, announced in London that it intends to sell its remaining 20 percent stake in Samba Financial Group, ending a presence in Saudi Arabia that began in 1955. In Washington, the Federal Reserve said that Citigroup has agreed to pay $70 million to settle accusations that its CitiFinancial Credit Company subsidiary had violated federal fair lending laws and attempted to mislead bank examiners. In a three-paragraph statement, the Federal Reserve said CitiFinancial was required to pay restitution to some subprime and home mortgage borrowers... Citigroup said the civil money penalty and restitution amounts would have "no material" impact on the second quarter earnings of its consumer group. The sale of Citigroup's remaining 20 percent stake in Samba to the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund will have a positive effect on earnings, the company said. In a statement, the bank said that as a result of the sale, it will realize an after-tax gain of $760 million, or 15 cents a share, in the second quarter. The sale of Citigroup's remaining 20 percent stake in Samba, formerly known as Saudi American Bank, comes as no surprise. Citibank first established a branch in Saudi Arabia in 1955 when it opened a bank in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. In 1966, it opened a branch in Riyadh, the capital. It operated autonomously in the country until 1980... At that point, Saudi law changed, and required that foreign banks sell 60 percent of the business to Saudi nationals. At that point, the name of the bank was changed to Saudi American Bank. Citi held a 40 percent stake in Samba until the early 1990's, when it sold off an additional 10 percent to Saudi nationals. That percentage held until 1999, when Samba acquired two local Saudi banks, diluting Citi's holding to 22.8 percent. In October 2002, Citigroup sold off 2.8 percent of its remaining share. Even though it was a minority shareholder, Citigroup maintained managerial control of Samba until last October, when its management contract lapsed. Last month, a Citigroup spokeswoman said Citigroup was considering seeking a charter for a new bank in Saudi Arabia. Despite the end of its direct ties in Saudi Arabia, Citigroup continues to have widespread relationships with the country and its citizens. The company's biggest individual shareholder, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, is a Saudi... " (Citigroup Agrees to Pay $70 Million to Settle Lending Inquiry, By Kenneth N. Gilpin, New York Times, May 27, 2004).

Citigroup

2004

$10,900,000

"U.S. prosecutors on Thursday said Citigroup Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. agreed to pay $20.6 million to settle charges they overbilled the government for reimbursements on Medicare expenses. At issue were charges that Citigroup's (C: Research, Estimates) Travelers Insurance Co. and UnitedHealth's (UNH: Research, Estimates) United Healthcare Insurance Co. submitted false figures to the government during a 12-year period, overcharging the Medicare program for reimbursements such as processing claims by physicians. Under the settlement, Travelers will pay $10.9 million and United Healthcare will pay $9.7 million. Neither company admitted to any of the charges as part of the settlement." (Reuters/CNNMoney.com, Aug 12, 2004).

Citigroup

2004

$2,650,000,000

"Bank of America has agreed to pay $460.5 million to settle with investors who bought Worldcom's stock and bonds before the telecommunications giant filed for bankruptcy in 2002. The settlement was struck between Bank of America and Alan G. Hevesi, the comptroller of New York state and trustee of the states' Common Retirement Fund. Mr. Hevesi is the lead plaintiff in the case and represents investors who lost billions when Worldcom collapsed. The bank said in a statement that it was in the best interests of its shareholders to put the litigation behind it. In settling, the bank denied that it had violated any law. Lawyers for the New York fund have argued that the banks that sold Worldcom securities to investors did not conduct appropriately thorough investigation into the company's financial condition before the securities sales. For example, Worldcom sold $12 billion in bonds in May 2001; just over a year later the company made the largest bankruptcy filing in history. The banks have said that they relied on financial statements vetted by Worldcom's auditor and were duped by an accounting fraud at the company that many experts missed. Bank of America is the second Worldcom bank to settle with the New York fund. Citigroup, Worldcom's lead banker, paid $2.65 billion to settle with the fund last May. Bank of America's settlement uses the same formula computed by Citigroup in its deal, even though Bank of America's securities unit was just one of many banks that helped to sell Worldcom's bonds to the public. The bank's desire to settle under the same terms agreed to by Worldcom's biggest supporter on Wall Street seems to indicate an eagerness by Bank of America to avoid a jury trial in the case..." (New York Times, March 3, 3005).

Citigroup

2005

$20,000,000

"Citigroup will pay a civil fine of $20 million and Putnam Investments will pay $40 million to resolve federal regulators' accusations that they kept from customers the fact that brokers had been paid to recommend certain mutual funds, creating a conflict of interest.
The settlements were announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citigroup and Putnam, a unit of the Marsh & McLennan Companies, neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing as part of the agreements. The S.E.C. also accused Citigroup of selling a type of mutual fund shares known as Class B shares to certain large-scale customers who could have earned a higher return from another type of shares.
In a related move, NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization, disclosed that Citigroup, American Express Financial Advisers and J. P. Morgan Chase & Company had agreed to pay a total of $21.25 million for reported violations in sales of mutual funds." (AP / New York Times, March 24, 2005).

Citigroup

2005

some portion of $21,250,000

"... NASD, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization, disclosed that Citigroup, American Express Financial Advisers and J. P. Morgan Chase & Company had agreed to pay a total of $21.25 million for reported violations in sales of mutual funds." (AP / New York Times, March 24, 2005).

Citigroup

2005

$2,000,000,000

Citigroup Inc., the world's largest financial services company, on Friday said it will pay $2 billion to Enron Corp. investors who accused it of helping engineer a massive accounting fraud at the energy trader. The class-action settlement is one of the largest in corporate history, though it is less than the $2.58 billion that Citigroup agreed to pay WorldCom Inc. investors in 2004. The settlement may put pressure on a series of other major banks to settle with Enron investors... Other financial institutions facing claims for their role in Enron's December 2001 collapse include JP Morgan Chase and Co., Barclays Plc, Credit Suisse First Boston, Merrill Lynch, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto Dominion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bank AG and the Royal Bank of Scotland... Two other banks previously reached settlements with Enron investors. Lehman Brothers agreed to a $222.5 million settlement, while Bank of America agreed to pay $69 million... (Reuters / New York Times, June 10, 2005).

Citigroup

2005

$25,000,000

Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest bank, will pay 13.9 million pounds ($25 million) to settle an investigation by the U.K. securities regulator into a series of European government bond trades that roiled markets last year. The bank must forfeit the 9.96 million pounds in profit made from the Aug. 2 bond trades and pay a 4 million-pound penalty.. Citigroup has apologized for the August trades, when it bought European government bond futures on the Eurex AG derivatives exchange before flooding the MTS SpA electronic-trading platform and other cash markets with 12.9 billion euros ($15.6 billion) of bonds within seconds. The bank then bought some back for a profit... Chief Executive Officer Charles Prince pledged last October to restore Citigroup's reputation after the bond scandal, the forced closure of the company's private bank in Japan and allegations Citigroup helped businesses to defraud investors. The bank said June 10 it would pay investors $2 billion in the largest settlement of a lawsuit against Enron Corp. investment bankers... (Bloomberg, June 28, 2005).

Coca-Cola

2001

$192,500,000

"Agreed to pay $192.5 million to resolve a federal [race discrimination] lawsuit filed in April 1999 by African-American employees... The settlement requires Coca-Cola to pay the class $58.7 million in compensatory damages, $24.1 million in back pay, $10 million for promotional bonuses and $43.5 in pay equity adjustments, as well as make sweeping programmatic reforms costing another $36 million. http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01december/dec01corp1.html

Colonial Pipeline

199?

$7,000,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

ConAgra

199?

$4,400,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999

Conseco

2004

$15,000,000

"Two insurance companies will pay $20 million in a settlement that ends an investigation into charges that the companies allowed improper trading of annuities... Conseco and its successor in the variable annuities business, Inviva, agreed to the settlement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators accused the companies of allowing some favored investors to engage in rapid trading of mutual funds linked to variable annuity products... The SEC called the settlement the first enforcement action charging insurance companies with securities fraud for allowing market time of mutual funds. The insurance companies misled investors by saying the annuities were "not designed for professional market timing organizations," according to the firms' prospectuses. But the companies marketed and sold the annuities to professional market timers anyway, according to the SEC... Conseco was accused of allowing certain hedge fund managers to do rapid, short-term trading of its mutual fund sub-accounts from 2000 through April 2003. Inviva, which bought Conseco's variable annuities business in 2002, was accused of continuing the preferential treatment for a year... Conseco will pay $15 million in restitution and Inviva will pay $5 million. Inviva will also hire a monitor to make sure the firm is complying with reforms to prevent market timing of trades of variable annuities, which provide annuities payments, a death benefit and the option to invest in the stock market through separate mutual fund accounts."

Consolidated Edison

199?

$2,000,000

Multinational Monitor, July/August 1999