Fugitive ex-CEO Jacob (Kobi) Alexander, who is scheduled to return to the U.S. from Namibia on Wednesday to plead guilty to securities fraud after leaving America more than 10 years ago, will try to convince a Brooklyn judge to release him on $25 million bail, reports the New York Daily News.

The 64-year-old ex-CEO of Comverse Technology Inc. moved to Namibia before he was formally charged in 2006 in a scheme involving the backdating of stock options at Comverse. He faces up to 10 years in prison, writes John Marzulli.

The Wall Street Journal explains how the alleged scheme worked:

Prosecutors allege Mr. Alexander, along with Comverse’s general counsel and its finance chief, for years would look for low-price trading days in the past on which to pretend they and other employees had been awarded stock options at that day’s price. Since an option grants its holder the right to buy shares at a fixed price, the alleged manipulation scored them instant gains. The backdating added millions to Mr. Alexander’s compensation.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that prominent Texas lawyer Mikal Watts was acquitted on Thursday of charges he made up thousands of fake clients to sue BP Plc for damages that the oil company caused in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, court records show.

A Mississippi federal jury found Watts and four other defendants not guilty of charges related to an alleged scheme to defraud a program set up by BP to compensate people who suffered economic losses from the spill, writes Jonathan Stempel. The jury found two other defendants guilty.

“The U.S. Department of Justice had accused the defendants of submitting claims on behalf of more than 40,000 people who had not agreed to be represented by Watts’ firm, or else were identified with stolen or bogus Social Security numbers and other personal information,” reports Stempel.

Read the article.

For 50 years, police officers across the United States have been reciting the so-called Miranda warning to criminal suspects before they are detained.

Androvett Legal Media & Marketing reports that the largest legal association in the United States – the American Bar Association – is taking steps to ensure that the language in Miranda warnings is accurately translated for Spanish-speaking suspects who may not understand English. When the ABA meets this week in San Francisco for its annual convention, members will consider a proposal to adopt a uniform Spanish-language translation of the now-immortalized words from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling.

In its blog post, the Androvett firm quotes Dallas lawyer John Teakell, who represents white-collar and other criminal defendants:

“Miranda has stood the test of time and protects both defendants from self-incrimination and police officers from allegations of investigative misconduct,” says  “The ABA’s efforts to create a standard translation will go a long way toward extending these constitutional rights to everyone.”

Read the article.

A former FBI agent faces sentencing for lying during his testimony at the 2013 racketeering trial of Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, reports The Boston Globe.

Prosecutors and the defense have have proposed a plea agreement that recommends two years probation for Robert Fitzpatrick, 76, who is suffering from kidney disease, cancer, and diabetes.

“Fitzpatrick, who served as second-in-command of the FBI’s Boston office from 1981 to 1986, pleaded guilty in May to six counts of obstruction of justice and six counts of perjury for testimony that exaggerated his accomplishments and assisted the defense,” reports Shelley Murphy. “It marked a dramatic reversal for Fitzpatrick, who has been an outspoken critic of the FBI’s handling of Bulger since it was publicly revealed in the late 1990s that the gangster was a longtime informant who got away with murder while being protected from prosecution by corrupt agents.”

Read the article.

New details found in the leaked documents known as the Panama Papers indicate the magnitude of the use of shell companies in Africa to launder money, often illegally obtained from bribes, involving the sale of oil and other natural resources, according to an article published by Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. “That should prompt any oil companies doing business in Africa to quickly take stock of their contracts on that continent,” says Thomas Fox, a Houston consultant and lawyer who advises companies on international business and anti-bribery laws.

“It is imperative that any multinational company operating in Africa immediately check its contracts and payments to determine if it has been doing business with one of the shell companies listed in this most recent report,” says Fox, who is editor of the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report. “If they fail to do that, those companies will be in a much worse position when they receive an inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice or Securities and Exchange Commission.”

The latest revelations were published Monday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in collaboration with African news organizations. “These reports indicate that Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca established shell corporations for people in 44 of Africa’s 54 countries to assist in oil, gas and mining deals,” says Mr. Fox.

He notes that the first two waves of data published from the leaked documents came from politicians who used offshore tax havens to hide money and from U.S. citizens who used offshore tax havens to evade federal income taxes. “This third round of analysis puts the spotlight on those foreign officials who needed to launder money received from bribery and corruption.”

Fox, the former general counsel of an oilfield services company, has published several books on corporate compliance and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He is the founder of Advanced Compliance Solutions.

Image by NY Photographic

Bryan Cave has posted the audio and presentation slides of a webinar the firm recently presented examining how recent government settlements reinforce best practice components of an effective FCPA compliance program. The webinar was titled “Benchmarking Your FCPA Compliance Program.”

The webinar includes a landmark settlement against telecommunications provider VimpelCom Ltd.

DC partner Mark Srere, Denver partner Andrew Mohraz and DC associate Kristin Robinson lead the discussion on VimpelCom and other cases.

The webinar is the third of the year in Bryan Cave’s anti-corruption series. The topic will be of interest to in-house counsel and compliance professionals of companies that conduct business outside the United States.

Access the on-demand webinar.

Two former executives of Acclarent Inc, a medical device company bought by Johnson & Johnson in 2010, were convicted on Wednesday by a U.S. jury on charges of promoting a product for an unapproved use, Reuters is reporting.

Prosecutors said former Acclarent Chief Executive William Facteau and former Vice President of Sales Patrick Fabian were found guilty in federal court in Boston of 10 misdemeanor counts of violating the U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The counts each carry a maximum prison sentence of one year.

But the jury acquitted the two defendants of felony charges of wire fraud and conspiracy, finding they did not act with intent to defraud or mislead.

“In an indictment unsealed last April, federal prosecutors said that beginning in 2006 or earlier, Facteau, 47, and Fabian, 49, promoted Acclarent’s Relieva Stratus Microflow Spacer device to deliver steroid medications to patients’ sinuses, though it was only approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for keeping sinuses open,” reports Brendan Pierson for Reuters.

Read the article.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Prudential Annuities Distributors $950,000 on Tuesday for failing to prevent the fraudulent withdrawal of nearly $1.3 million from an elderly annuity holder’s account by her financial officer, according to a Reuters report.

Financial sales assistant Travis Wetzel was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering in 2015 and sentenced to 42 months in prison for forging annuity withdrawal requests on his 82-year-old client’s account.

“In its decision, FINRA said Prudential’s internal systems flagged 114 fraudulent withdrawals — up to five a month — that Wetzel made between July 2010 and September 2012 to wire money from the client’s account to one in his wife’s name,” reports Elizabeth Dilts.

Read the article.

A widening criminal probe casts new light on a bitter defeat hedge fund activist Bill Ackman suffered in his 2009 bid for board seats at U.S. retailer Target Corp, Reuters is reporting.

Target for years has paid proxy solicitor Georgeson LLC to track the votes of its top investors, writes Ross Kerber. Now five current and former Georgeson employees have been charged with fraud for using bribes to get advance voting information on proxy battles.

“The same tactics cited in the criminal complaint were used to help Target defeat Ackman in 2009, according to a former Georgeson employee turned whistleblower. Ackman, who runs hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, failed in the high-stakes battle to install his own slate of directors at Target and change its business direction,” according to the report.

The whistleblower told Reuters that he told regulators about alleged bribes that were being used to gain advance access on how investors were voting.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a rare internal examination of what went wrong in the prosecution of a controversial drug conspiracy case against delivery service Federal Express, according to the department’s top prosecutor in San Francisco.

“The review plays into a broader debate about how the government prosecutes suspected corporate wrongdoing and could influence its approach to such cases in the future,” write Dan Levine and David Ingram.

FedEx was indicted in 2014 on charges the company had knowingly helped Internet pharmacies ship illegal pills. Then, four days into a trial in San Francisco last month, the DOJ dropped all charges, a decision the judge praised, saying it was clear FedEx was “factually innocent.”

The new review will examine why prosecutors brought the case, what oversight supervisors provided and what role officials in Washington D.C. played.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that the FBI in New York City has undisclosed probes into about 30 suspected insider trading schemes, in a sign investigators remain focused on building cases despite a court ruling that could curtail such prosecutions.

Nate Raymond writes that the investigations come amid a resurgence of insider trading cases, with prosecutors in Manhattan charging 11 people so far in 2016, up from just four in 2015.

“The probes follow a 2014 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that authorities have said could allow some individuals to avoid prosecution and that has already led to charges being dropped or reversed for 14 defendants,” the report says.

Read the article.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday gave the U.S. Department of Justice broad leeway to police password theft under a 1984 anti-hacking law, upholding the conviction of a former Korn/Ferry International executive for stealing confidential client data, reports Reuters.

“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said David Nosal violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 2005 when he and two friends, who had also left Korn/Ferry, used an employee’s password to access the recruiting firm’s computers and obtain information to help start a new firm,” reports Jonathan Stempel.

The court found that Nosal acted “without authorization” even though the employee, his former secretary, had voluntarily provided her password.

Read the article.

Hogan Lovells announced that Gejaa T. Gobena will join the firm’s Investigations, White Collar and Fraud (IWCF) practice as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office.

Prior to joining Hogan Lovells, Gobena served as Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ). As Deputy Chief, Gobena led the Criminal Division’s fifty-attorney health care fraud unit, supervising prosecutions brought by Medicare Fraud Strike Force teams across the country and spearheading the Unit’s recent shift to investigating and prosecuting broader corporate health care fraud schemes. In that position, he oversaw the prosecution of over a thousand individuals for health care fraud, including last week’s historic national health care fraud takedown which involved charging more than 300 individuals accused of committing fraud costing the government US$900 million.

In a release, the firm said:

Gobena will supplement Hogan Lovell’s substantial national IWCF practice by counseling clients as they navigate internal and government investigations, particularly health care fraud investigations. He will further assist Hogan Lovells’ clients looking to mitigate risk following the new USDOJ directive to pursue executives of target corporations more aggressively.

“Government agencies are evolving their enforcement strategies through innovations in technology, data and new legal theories,” said Crispin Rapinet, global head of the firm’s ICWF practice. “The range of Gejaa’s DOJ experience handling both False Claims Act cases as a younger lawyer and then in fraud prosecutions for the Criminal Division gives him tremendous skill as well as insight into the personalities and priorities driving DOJ decision-making, all of which will be of great value to our clients.”

During his tenure as DOJ Deputy Chief, Gobena supervised teams that prosecuted large corporate entities in cities throughout the country. He also worked and advised on non-health care fraud prosecutions and policy matters, including matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Earlier, Gobena was part of the HEAT (Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team) initiative in Detroit, where he worked with teams of investigators from Office of Inspector General-Health & Human Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation and numerous other law enforcement agencies to prosecute health care fraud cases to verdict before earning his promotion to supervisor.

And for several years before that, Gobena handled civil False Claims Act and qui tam matters for DOJ’s Civil Division.

“Our firm continues to identify and hire talented lawyers with government agency credentials and experience to provide our clients with a complete understanding of how enforcement agencies are pursuing investigations,” said Dennis Tracey, head of Litigation for the Americas. “Gejaa is a confident, personable and engaging litigator with a demonstrated thoughtful and thorough approach to handling legal challenges.”

In 2015, Gobena received the Award for Excellence from the Health and Human Services Department of the Office of the Inspector General. He also received the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2013, and the Attorney General’s Award for Fraud Prevention in 2011.

He earned his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and his B.A. from The University of Virginia.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dallas-based Breitling Energy Corp. and its CEO, “Frack Master” Chris Faulkner, of fraudulently spending tens of millions of dollars of investors’ money on lavish meals, expensive cars, strippers and escorts, reports Mark Curriden of The Texas Lawbook in the Houston Chronicle‘s FuelFix blog.

The SEC claims that Faulkner presided over an $80 million oil and gas fraud that included Breitling, Crude Energy, Patriot Energy  and Breitling Oil and Gas. Charges also named eight corporate executives, including Breitling Energy General Counsel Jeremy Wagers, who previously practiced law at Houston-based Vinson & Elkins and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Houston, Curriden reports.

“Faulkner,  a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox Business News and CNN, , disseminated false and misleading offering materials, misappropriated tens of millions of dollars of investor funds and attempted to manipulate Breitling Energy’s stock, the SEC charged in a 63-page complaint filed Friday in federal court in Dallas. Faulkner was dubbed “frack master” by the media because of his advocacy of the industry, according to Breitling Energy’s web site,” according to the report.

Read the article.

By Jose Tabuena, JD, CFE, CHC

In continuation of the discussion of compliance program “effectiveness” and the challenges of metrics and measurement, is the concept of benchmarking — an oft misunderstood term. Simply put, it is the process of comparing one’s own business processes and performance to industry standards and peers to determine a relative degree of success.

Occasionally one can still find reference to a board director or company executive stating, “We decided to “benchmark” our compliance program, but actually meaning, “We brought in a consultant who linked the elements of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to our program, gave us a grade, and then talked to us about what’s going well and what could be improved.”

Although we don’t need to get tied up in the semantics, it is important to keep distinct benchmarking from other processes involved in a program evaluation. Benchmarking is a discrete process from the assessment or audit of the effectiveness of a compliance program. While benchmarking can be part of a program evaluation, by itself it does not comprise an evaluation and determination of effectiveness. It does, however, enable organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt identified leading-edge practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance.

Benchmarking already seems to be an implicit feature of a program evaluation, whether conducted by a prosecutor in deciding if a company’s compliance program is so deficient that criminal prosecution may be appropriate, or performed internally when a board direct asks how the company program compares to competitors. In the event of a compliance failure, government investigators are said to compare the organization’s compliance program to those of similar organizations (in terms of size, complexity, industry, geographic footprint, etc.). Companies whose programs are not comparable to those of their peers are more likely to be found ineffective and could be subject to harsher penalties.

Recent developments, including the Department of Justice creating a new position and hiring a compliance counsel, suggests that government authorities will be looking more closely at compliance programs not only to see if they actually exist or meet minimum standards, but whether they are closer to better practices. The charge of the new compliance counsel includes assisting prosecutors in establishing appropriate benchmarks for corporate compliance. According to the DoJ section chief, this means “benchmarking with various companies in a variety of different industries to make sure we have realistic expectations … and tough-but-fair ones in various industries.” This trend of the government to provide more guidance has continued with the DoJ stating it plans to release a set sample questions to give companies an idea what investigators and prosecutors are concerned with.

Types of program benchmarking

Compliance professionals and auditors should monitor this promised guidance from the Justice Department’s Fraud Division on how it proposes to evaluate the existence and effectiveness of individual corporate compliance plans. A recent and detailed “open letter” to the DoJ’s new compliance counsel (published in the Harvard Business Law Review) serves in part to provide recommendations on how the Department should implement this goal of establishing industry-specific benchmarks by which individual programs may be evaluated.

As described in the open letter, some of the principal categories of business benchmarking to consider include:

External benchmarking. This involves analyzing “best in class” outside organizations, providing the opportunity to learn from those perceived to be at the leading edge. This is the type that probably comes most readily to mind, and seems the most intuitively appealing—why not learn from the best? But three caveats are in order.

While benchmarking can be part of a program evaluation, by itself it does not comprise an evaluation and determination of effectiveness. It does, however, enable organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt identified leading-edge practices.

First, this type of benchmarking can involve implicit decisions about what makes certain organizations best-in-class for certain corporate compliance functions. This is an area of uncertainty, though promising empirical studies are emerging. What works (or what works best) is still not fully known.

Second, the DoJ’s own experiences with corporate investigations have revealed that companies with a general best-in-class reputation (in terms of size or profitability) can still have significant deficiencies in their compliance programs.

Third, solutions that work effectively for very large companies may not be practicable for smaller companies that cannot afford the necessary resources or technology to implement them.

Internal benchmarking. This entails benchmarking businesses or operations from within the same organization (e.g., business units in different countries). At first blush, this type of benchmarking may not seem worthwhile. If a compliance program is found deficient in one business unit within a company, examining how that program works in other business units of that company might seem pointless. However, companies have discovered that in examining a particular process across the organization, they may find significant variations between units or product lines. Such variations can help identify flaws the company should fix or enhancements the company should adopt, and determine whether ongoing monitoring is necessary.

Performance benchmarking. This looks at performance characteristics in relation to key products and services in the same sector. Although the DoJ does not set production performance standards—for example, how many units per hour should be produced—it could use performance benchmarking to identify features of compliance programs that yield quantitatively measurable results. One example would be aboveaverage detection of instances of potential misconduct or numbers of corruption-related Suspicious Activity Reports. In healthcare, this could entail the frequency and accuracy of regular audits of billing and coding processes to ensure that medical services were billed and paid correctly given the scrutiny of government reimbursement.

Strategic benchmarking. This involves examining long-term strategies, for example regarding core competencies, new product, and service development, or improving capabilities for dealing with change. Standard components of compliance programs, such as risk assessment processes and cultural assessment, may come to mind here. The methodology could include strategic approaches for companies developing or improving compliance programs.

Here again the auditor can bring his or her toolbox to assist the compliance professional in benchmarking the program. Methodologies and techniques for benchmarking comprise the evaluative approaches the audit profession has used for systematic program evaluation. The audit practitioner could apply rigorous approaches such as maturity and internal control reliability models with different levels of effectiveness when benchmarking the compliance program.

A feature ideal for benchmarking is assessment of whether the compliance officer has the appropriate autonomy and resources to oversee the compliance program. Because what constitutes appropriate autonomy and resources can vary widely for smaller and larger companies, the general standard and guidance is too general and laden with contingency. For instance, a single paragraph in the FCPA Resource Guide states multiple times that the degree of autonomy and extent of resources devoted to the program will “depend” on circumstances.

Benchmarking on autonomy and resources would be more useful if it concentrates on identifying examples of suitable practices to ensure sufficient oversight, autonomy, and resources in companies of different sizes. For example, while a number of large companies have now separated their risk and compliance functions from their legal departments, smaller companies may need to decide whether and how they can leverage their compliance or legal departments (whichever is currently in place) to be effective overseers of risk and compliance wearing dual hats. Ideally what may emerge is the ability to identify percentage data that could be useful for companies of various sizes. For example, “We found that companies with annual revenues of less than $50 million, those companies that appeared to have effective compliance programs typically devoted between A and B percent of their annual budgets, while companies with annual revenues of $500 million or more appeared to have effective compliance programs typically devoted between C and D percent of their annual budgets.”

Another component for benchmarking is the compliance hotline. Auditors can benchmark the company’s hotline data to the vendor’s other customers of a similar size and industry, or to another credible external source. If you are only getting a fraction of the industry average number of complaints, there may be problems with the training and communications program. Further analysis can show whether the variance in hotline data (volume, incident mix, use of anonymity) is local or pervasive.

Considering the old adage of the usefulness of measuring call volume, benchmarking can help auditors assess if low volume is indicative of particular issues with the hotline process, by comparing call volume to industry averages. A low call volume can instead be due to employees using other methods to report potential wrongdoing. Before benchmarking your hotline, consider aggregating data from each reporting method to allow for such differences.

Benchmarking adds another piece to the puzzle of evaluating program effectiveness. Compliance officers themselves do not always know what works in compliance. For instance, it is difficult, if not impossible, to show whether an investment in additional training will make a meaningful difference in employee behavior, or whether one form of compliance infrastructure is better than another, or what the right level of staffing or resource allocation is for a particular compliance department.

If compliance officers cannot answer these questions definitively, there is good reason to suppose that generalist prosecutors who are not embedded in the day-to-day operation of the subject organization cannot precisely answer them either. At a minimum there is value in better understanding what practices are in place and how your organization compare.

All these developments suggest that the DOJ will be scrutinizing compliance programs much more closely. Significantly it reveals recognition by the government of the need to be more transparent about how its decisions are made regarding prosecution and related matters while acknowledging that at the moment program evaluation needs benchmarks in order to better evaluate effectiveness and performance.

Originally published in Compliance Week

Foley & Lardner LLP announced that Zaldwaynaka (Z) Scott has joined the firm’s Government Enforcement, Compliance & White Collar Practice as a partner in the Chicago office. The firm says she has decades of experience managing high-stakes white collar matters in both private and public sector roles, including the United States Department of Justice and the State of Illinois.

In a release, the firm said Scott, a former executive inspector general for the Office of the Governor of Illinois, is a seasoned trial lawyer with experience in complex commercial litigation, corporate internal investigations, corporate compliance matters and white collar defense. Her federal and criminal litigation experience includes representing Fortune 1000 corporations, private companies and individuals in accounting and commercial fraud, public corruption, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters, civil tax appeals and criminal tax prosecutions, money-laundering, and investment and financial institution fraud. She has also led and represented companies in complex and extensive government regulatory and criminal grand jury investigations.

The release continues:

“We look forward to adding Z’s trial experience and internal investigation knowledge to our team. Her successful track record across complex litigation and strong proactive compliance counseling will enhance our white collar footprint,” said Lisa Noller, chair of Foley’s Government Enforcement, Compliance & White Collar Practice.

While serving as executive inspector general for the Office of the Governor of Illinois, Scott established and managed an internal compliance and investigative agency for the Illinois government and the state’s public universities. She oversaw more than 200 internal investigations of state vendors and state employees, as well as counseling members of the governor’s cabinet and state senior managers, including agency directors on issues related to personnel policies, internal controls, ethics and systemic personnel problems. In addition, Scott served as a federal criminal prosecutor with the United States Attorney’s Office, where she held various management positions, including chief of the General Crimes Section.

“Our clients will be well served by Z’s extensive experience working with various agencies across the government of Illinois on pressing issues and investigations, and we are thrilled to welcome her to our team,” said Myles Berman, managing partner of Foley’s Chicago office.

Prior to joining Foley, Scott was a partner at Kaye Scholer.

Reuters is reporting that former Countrywide Financial Corp CEO Angelo Mozilo and other executives will not face a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit for defrauding investors in mortgage-backed securities issued before the 2008 financial crisis, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The sources said the Justice Department told Mozilo and the others that they would not be the subject of a civil fraud case related to their roles at the mortgage lender in the run-up to the crisis, the sources said.

“Countrywide, at one time the nation’s top mortgage company, collapsed under the weight of soured loans and was acquired for about $4 billion by Bank of America Corp in July 2008,” wrote Reuters reporter Nate Raymond.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges that security lapses at the Wall Street bank enabled a former financial adviser to tap into its computers and take client data home, the regulator said.

“The settlement resolves allegations related to Galen Marsh’s unauthorized transfers from 2011 to 2014 of data from about 730,000 accounts to his home computer in New Jersey, some of which was hacked by third parties and offered for sale online,” reports Jonathan Stempel for Reuters.

“According to the SEC, Morgan Stanley violated a federal regulation known as the Safeguards Rule by failing to properly protect customer data, allowing Marsh to access names, addresses, phone numbers, and account holdings and balances,” the report says.

Read the article.

In their first U.S. court appearances, two Israeli men pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges that they broke into a dozen companies’ computer networks, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., to facilitate a global network of criminal activity, reports The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.

Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein have been in custody in Israel since their arrest last summer. They were extradited to the United States to face the charges.

“Federal prosecutors accused the three men and their accomplices of carrying out data breaches at a dozen companies and turning the stolen information, including customers’ email addresses and phone numbers, into hundreds of millions of dollars,” reports Nicole Hong for The Journal. “The hacking allegedly facilitated a host of other crimes, including illegal internet casinos, pump-and-dump schemes, a payment processing service for other criminals and an unlicensed bitcoin exchange.”

Read the article on The Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg News.

A French labor court Tuesday awarded Jérôme Kerviel, the Société Générale SA rogue trader convicted in 2010 of bringing the bank to the brink of collapse, a total of €450,000 ($511,000) because he was fired without “real or serious cause,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to the report: “Société Générale ‘could not pretend it hadn’t long been aware of the unauthorized trades conducted by Mr. Kerviel,’ judges wrote in their ruling. The bank therefore can’t argue that Mr. Kerviel was at fault when it ‘previously tolerated similar practices,’ they added.”

In a previous trial, Kerviel was found guilty on charges of forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer use and sentenced to three years in prison. He was ordered to repay his former employer €4.9 billion.

Read the article.