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It’s Raining Subpoenas at General Re
General Re Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway Inc., issued a press release on Jan. 6 (available in the company’s Form 8-K here) disclosing that it has received subpoenas from the SEC, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and perhaps most ominously, from a grand jury in the Eastern District
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Double-Billing by Yale School of Management Professor
An ironic story in the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 10) discusses the demise of Florencio López-de-Silanes as the head of the Yale School of Management’s International Institute for Corporate Governance for $150,000 of double-billed business expenses. According to the article: Neither Yale nor Mr. López-de-Silanes — known as a strong advocate of prompt disclosure of
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Criminal Copyright Sentencing
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut announced the sentencing on Jan. 6 of Manpreet Singh after his guilty plea to a criminal copyright violation. According to the press release issued by the USAO: SINGH was a participant in the “warez scene” – an underground online community that consists of individuals and organized groups who use
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Ken Lay’s Web Media Campaign
A post on Jan. 5 (The "Honest-but-Ignorant CEO" Defense) discussed former Enron CEO Ken Lay’s defense against federal charges, including the use of a website http://www.kenlayinfo.com to get his message across. An article in the Houston Chronicle (Jan. 8) indicates that Lay is paying to have his website be a sponsored link on Google, AOL,
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Limited Funding for Former Enron Executive Defense Costs
A settlement of claims by Enron shareholders and securities purchasers announced yesterday includes an interesting provision that will affect, among others, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling as they prepare for a long-term criminal trial later this year. As reported in an article in the Houston Chronicle (Jan. 7), the $200 million available from Enron’s Directors
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SEC Starts Informal Inquiry into TASER
TASER International, Inc. announced on Jan. 7 that is has received a letter of inquiry from the SEC regarding the company’s public announcements regarding the safety of its products and a recent order from Davidson’s Inc. The company’s press release states: "We are confident our statements are supported by the safety studies of our products,"
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Are the Phillies Really That Bad?
On Thursday, Jan. 6, a federal court jury in Philadelphia convicted Allan Carlson of 52 counts of computer fraud and 27 counts of identity theft related to a series of spam e-mails that contained long rants about how poorly the Philadelphia Phillies were managed (no doubt including former manager Larry Bowa, who was fired at
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Monsanto Settles FCPA Complaint
On Jan. 6, the Monsanto Company settled an SEC complaint that it made payments to Indonesian officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and agreed to pay a $500,000 fine. According to the SEC’s Litigation Release: [A] senior Monsanto manager, based in the United States, authorized and directed an Indonesian consulting firm to
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Former Marsh & McLennan Broker Pleads Guilty
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigation of bid-rigging in the insurance industry has resulted in a guilty plea by Robert Stearns, a former Marsh & McLennan Corp. broker. According to a press release issued by Spitzer’s office (Jan. 6), "In his guilty plea, the Marsh executive admitted that during a period from 2002 to
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Blogs from the Academy
The co-editor of this blog, Prof. Ellen Podgor, reports the following from a session at the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting in San Francisco about blogging: At the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) annual Criminal Justice Luncheon, bloggers Jack Chin, Mark Godsey (of the CrimProf Blog), and Doug Berman (Sentencing Law and
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