Inside these posts: Fraud

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SEC files for settlement in Navistar fraud case

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal court judge to sign off on a consent order that would settle a years-long accounting fraud scandal that led to Warrenville-based Navistar’s delisting on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007.

The settlement agreement, first announced last October, was opened to the public for the first time Thursday, and names five former and current Navistar employees who allegedly engaged in fraudulent and improper accounting practices that led the company to overstate its pre-tax income by approximately $137 million from 2001 to 2005. The company manufactures and markets commercial trucks, school buses, diesel engines and related parts. Get the full story »

Examiner Kenneth Klee: Tribune buyout ‘marred’

The court-appointed examiner in Tribune Co.’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case determined that the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout was “marred” by the “dishonesty and lack of candor” of its then-senior management, and that the deal rendered the media conglomerate insolvent from the moment the two-step transaction closed.

Conrad Black posts bond, leaves prison

Conrad Black left a Florida prison Wednesday, after a Chicago federal judge ordered his release on a $2 million bond pending a review of his 2007 fraud conviction.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ordered Black, who once controlled a media company that owned the Chicago Sun-Times, to appear in her courtroom at 12:30 p.m. Friday, to go over the conditions of his release. Get the full story »

Aon may resume taking broker fees

From Bloomberg | Aon Corp., the world’s biggest insurance broker, said it may resume taking payments that were banned for five years under a 2005 settlement with Eliot Spitzer, then the attorney general of New York.

Goldman to pay $550M in SEC settlement

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations of misleading investors.

Inmates booked $9.1M in homebuyer tax credits

Another report is out looking at fraudulent activity related to the homebuyer tax credit and this one’s got a new wrinkle.

Almost 1,300 prisoners in jail –  including 241 serving life sentences — wrongly received $9.1 million in credits for home purchases they purported to make while in jail.  Another 2,555 improperly received $17.6 million for home purchases made before the tax credit became effective, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, 1.8 million taxpayers received $12.6 billion in homebuyer credits before March.

But that doesn’t mean 1.8 million homes were sold. The agency found that 10, 282 taxpayers received a credit for buying the same home as was used by other taxpayers for the credit. In fact, 67 taxpayers used one  house. Auditors said the erroneous credits are likely to add up to tens of millions of dollars.