The Daily Caveat

Changing Face of Business Increases Demand for Investigative Assistance

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:13:00 +0000

Doing business in today's world is scary. Having investigators at your disposal? It's like the comforting combo of a bright shiny nightlight and snuggle blanket. With a glass of warm milk on the side. Good stuff from Law.com.

-- MDT

More Grief for Siemens

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:09:00 +0000

But not from where - or why - you'd think...

-- MDT

Curious How Many Cases This Has Brought In

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:35:00 +0000

Video.

-- MDT

Dennis Kozlowski Seeks to Oveturn Conviction

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:28:00 +0000

The New York Supreme Court will decide his fate...already Kozlowski, one of the most noted of the Enron era's white collar crooks - he took his company, Tyco for $150 million - has served three years of his original sentence on fraud-related charges.

--MDT

Kumar Fingers Wang in Improper Accounting

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Bad news for Computer Associates co-founder, Charles Wang, who has found himself thrown under the bus by protege and former CA CEO, Sanjay Kumar. All this is spinning out of the lawsuit filed by Big Texan Sam Wyly, who we've written about before in these parts based on his other adventures in litigation.

-- MDT

Illegal Gambling Investments Put Vanguard on the Ropes

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Vanguard is managing this squirrel's nut. Someone has to keep them on the straight and narrow.

-- MDTG

Controversial Prosecutorial Practice Gets the Muzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:30:00 +0000

No more pre-trial agreements to shake down confidential docs...among other things.

Details at the WaPo.

-- MDT

Kroll Hiring

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:25:00 +0000

If El Centro, California sounds good to you, here's your chance.

-- MDT

A Massachusetts Angle on the Auction Rate Securities Mess

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:19:00 +0000

By way of an interview with Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin.

-- MDT

When Bribery Isn't Bribery

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:14:00 +0000

That would be in Germany prior to 2002... And thanks to that Siemens has seen a €38 million fine overturned and a few bribery convictions along with it.

-- MDT

Agitating Over In-Action From Canadian Government on Exposed Tax Cheats

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:10:00 +0000

Kieber's list continues to reverberate...of course it happens to be Kieber's attorney who is banging the drum in this case.

-- MDT

Back in the Saddle

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:51:00 +0000

After a week's vacation. Now, what'd I miss?

- MDT

Melvyn Weiss Reports For Prison Term

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:35:00 +0000

30 months in Morgantown, West Virgina minimum security.

-- MDT

UK Agency Takes Background Checks Over the Line

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:52:00 +0000

The British Criminal Records Bureau, which was set up a half-dozen years ago, aids in vetting potential public and private sector employees - specifically those who might come into contact with young children, - by providing a standard criminal record report.

According to The Times of London, the CRB has gone far beyond this mandate, passing files to more than 50 different recruiting firms for standard job vetting in cases where there is no connection with kids whatsoever.

Now here's the kicker - for an extra £5, you can get the police file on the charges that were unproven.

Then again, I guess these days in the UK you can be stopped and searched in public for no reason whatsoever...so this comes as no real surprise.

-- MDT

Checking in With Inmate #46683-112 (Bill Lerach)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:25:00 +0000

I could do with out the triumphalism in the piece (and the transparent bitterness over not having a planned interview with Lerach take place), but give this DC Examiner article a gander anyway for a day-in-the life story for what Lerach is up to these days, while completing his sentence at a minimum security prison in Lompoc, California.

- MDT

Australian PI To Do Time For Posing as Police

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:09:00 +0000

Brett Sutcliffe at 28 year old "investigator" who fronts a really classy Aussie P.I. firm called Spousebusters has been sentenced to a year in jail for trying to intimidate a 77 year old women with a phoney letter that presented him as a member of the Australian Federal Police.

The elderly woman had apparently irritated Sutcliffe by asking him to move is investigator-mobile so that she could more easily carry her groceries into her house. Sutcliffe declined to cooperate, citing national security concerns.

The completely ridiculous threat letter followed and now jail will follow for Mr. Sutcliffe. Of course, the most beautiful part of the whole thing is that Sutcliffe was outed as a phony when the same elderly woman saw him on a local news show pimping his telephoto lens skills.

Sweet sweet comeuppance ensued. To see a picture of this chump Sutcliffe, try here.

-- MDT

Siemens and the SEC Close to a Deal?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:03:00 +0000

That seems to be the word on Der Street.

-- MDT

Victims of PAAM Hedge Fund Meltdown Unlikely to See Recompense

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:31:00 +0000

Even though fund manager, Paul Eustace, formerly of the now defunct Philadelphia Alternative Asset Management is facing a court order requiring him to pay some $237 million to investors (not to mention another $20 million in fines) it seems unlikely that Eustace will be doing so any time soon.

The good news is that about $180 million has already been recovered, mostly in the form of other PAAM-related legal settlements from UBS bank and The Man Group's MF Global.

Eustace, you may recall, was shut down by the CTFC back in 2005 after it became known that he had cost his PAAM investors millions while using misappropriated funds to do stuff like get his girlfriend a boob job.

For all of our past coverage of the PAAM case - see here.

-- MDT

News to Nobody: Siemens Internal Corruption Controls Found Lacking

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:10:00 +0000

Um...yeah.

-- MDT

UK's Serious Fraud Office Investigations "Golf-For-Influence" Claims

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Sink me!
I believe some hooligans have knocked over a dustbin in shaftsbury!

Also... free golf.

-- MDT

The August Portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Michael D. Thomas) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:38:00 +0000

Big fan of the mag. Even bigger fan of the website. Couple of stories worth checking out while they are still available.

The first is an update on questions surrounding the death, which some call murder, of soft serve king, Tom Carvel back in 1990. We first wrote about the Carvel estate back in the Spring of 2007.

The second concerns Robert Amsterdam, defense attorney for Russian oil billionaire, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of Yukos. A more than interesting view on what happens when you face the Russian government across the aisle.

Enjoy...

-- MDT

Cuomo's Auction Rate Securites Probe Gets More Ambitious

noreply@blogger.com (MDT) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:17:00 +0000

...with the addition of a few more minor names, like JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia.

-- MDT

National Century Execs Sentenced

noreply@blogger.com (MDT) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:09:00 +0000

You can view the Justice Department release, right here.

-- MDT

Countrywide Exec, Mozilo Faces SEC Probe

noreply@blogger.com (MDT) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:08:00 +0000

An insider trading look for Angelo.

-- MDT

Major Exchanges Agree to Tighten Regulations

noreply@blogger.com (MDT) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:04:00 +0000

In order "to strengthen investor protection by consolidating the surveillance, investigation and enforcement of insider trading in equity securities."

Get the details at MarketWatch.

-- MDT