Corruption

Canadian energy firm stays mum on bribery allegations

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Carrie Tait – May 15, 2012

Griffiths Energy International Inc., a company aspiring to go public but marred by an internal corruption investigation, has wrapped up its soul-searching mission.

But potential investors -- as well as existing private ones -- will find little comfort in a statement the company released Tuesday. Only three paragraphs of the 2,188-word (less boilerplate) press release are devoted to its bribery investigation.

Second legislative warrant to be issued for ORNGE founder

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Tanya Talaga – May 17, 2012

A second warrant will be issued to try to force ORNGE founder Dr. Chris Mazza to testify before the committee investigating the air ambulance scandal. And he isn’t the only one the legislative probe is recalling.

Former Liberal Party of Canada president Alfred Apps; Don Guy, the mastermind behind Premier Dalton McGuinty’s last four election campaigns; and Saad Rafi, the deputy health minister, will be asked to testify again.

Montreal corruption sweep arrests nine

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Frank Zampino

Peter Rakobowchuk – May 17, 2012

Police arrested nine people in a massive anti-corruption sweep that nabbed several former key members of Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay’s inner circle.

With Thursday’s dragnet, the corruption scandals that have rocked Quebec over the last four years have returned home to where they started: Montreal’s city hall.

Figure skating: more corrupt than ever?

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Boston Globe – May 20, 2012

In the Olympics, many events depend on subjective scoring from a panel of judges. But confidence in these scoring systems has been undermined by scandals, perhaps most infamously a 2002 pairs skating case in which a French judge “was reportedly pressured by some combination of her national federation and the Russian mafia to vote for a Russian pair in exchange for a Russian vote for a French couple in ice dancing.”

In response, the International Skating Union, the ISU, anonymized judges’ scores—on the theory that vote trading would then be harder to carry off—and developed an elaborate score-tabulation system. A new study from a professor of economics at Dartmouth, however, suggests this has all been for naught or, even worse, for show.

Is Walmart Too Big, Powerful, Influential to Obey the Law?

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Richard Trumka – April 26, 2012

This week's reports from the New York Times about Walmart's practices in Mexico are breathtaking. The Times found "credible evidence that bribery played a persistent and significant role in Walmart's rapid growth in Mexico."

Global organisations lose 5% of revenue to fraud

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Iheanyi Nwachukwu – May 17, 2012

Organisations around the world lose an estimated 5 percent of their annual revenues to fraud, according to a survey of Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs) who investigated cases between January 2010 and December 2011.

Applied to the estimated 2011 Gross World Product, this figure translates to a potential total fraud loss of more than $3.5 trillion. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) published the results of the survey in its highly-anticipated 2012 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse. The report includes global data amongst the 1,388 cases of fraud that were studied.

40% consider corruption widespread in Canadian businesses

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Mitchell Ogisi – May 10, 2012

About two in three adults worldwide believe corruption is widespread in the businesses in their countries. This belief is relatively commonplace everywhere in the world -- ranging from 60% in the U.S.A.  to a high of 76% in sub-Saharan Africa -- but it tends to be higher in lower income regions.

Gallup's data, collected in 2011, demonstrate that corruption in business is an issue for developed and developing countries. However, developing nations may suffer more because corruption can stymie financial development and foreign investments and foster income inequality.

Minister calls for investigation of P.E.I. Immigrant Program

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Brodie Fenlon – 10 May 2012

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has called on his officials to launch an investigation in the wake of a joint probe of P.E.I.'s controversial immigrant nominee program by the Huffington Post Canada and King's College journalism students.

“I have referred these findings to my department for further investigation,” Kenney said.The series, reported by students at the University of King’s College in Halifax, found the now-defunct program offered some foreign nationals a way to purchase entry into Canada by making “investments” they would never recoup, in companies they might not even know.

Ottawa crackdown on P.E.I. immigration scheme

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PEI Legislature

At first, it was a quiet, bureaucratic struggle, but by 2008, the gloves came off as Ottawa forced an end to P.E.I.’s Immigrant Partner program.

The King's Investigative Workshop – May 8, 2012

The Prince Edward Island government resisted years of efforts by Ottawa to have it change an immigration program that federal officials increasingly saw as a threat to the integrity of the country's immigration program.

The plan allowed foreign nationals to obtain expedited entry to Canada by making a payment, some of which went to a business in Prince Edward Island.

Ten-ton bridge stolen in Czech Republic

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David Moye – April 30, 2012

There's a million-dollar gap in the Czech Republic's railroad budget thanks to the theft of a 10-ton bridge near the eastern town of Slavkov.

The bridge burglary is being credited to a "train gang" who reportedly arrived at Slavkov depot with forged paperwork claiming that the footbridge over the disused railway track had to come down, the Telegraph reported.

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