Bayer Unit Plea-Bargains in Price Fixing
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The Bayer Corporation, a subsidiary of the Bayer Group of Germany, has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $33 million criminal fine for taking part in a conspiracy
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(InfoWorld) - Three U.S. men and one man living in France have pleaded guilty to charges related to a stock manipulation scheme that included sending out tens of millions of spam messages to pump up the stock value of 15 companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. The four men cost investors more than $20 million in their so-called pump-and-dump scheme, the DOJ said. Michael Saquella, also known as Michael Paloma, 47, of Mesa, Arizona., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria on Aug. 20. Lawrence J. Kaplan, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, pleaded guilty on July 25, in Alexandria to similar charges. Henry "Hank" J. Zemla, 38, of Harris Township, Michigan, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on July 20. The three defendants are scheduled to be sentenced between late November and early February. Saquella pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of electronic mail fraud involving 15 publicly traded companies. Kaplan pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving 14 of these companies, and Zemla pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving one of the companies. The plea agreements for all three defendants were unsealed Thursday. The scheme involved stocks from companies including eDollars, Xtreme Technologies, and PokerBook Gaming. Justin Medlin, 26, of Paris, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on Aug. 20 to a criminal information charging him with one count of electronic mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and electronic mail fraud involving seven of the companies. Medlin's plea agreement was unsealed Thursday. He will be sentenced on Nov. 30. The maximum penalties for each of the fraud charges is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The stock manipulation schemes generally followed a similar pattern, the DOJ said. The defendants generally solicited small, privately held companies that needed to raise money. One of the defendants would offer to help the company raise significant money through the sale of the company's stock, and then the defendants would list the company's shares on the Pink Sheets, a price quotation system primarily used for trading small companies' stocks. The group of defendants would then gain control of a majority of the stock of the company, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators then engaged in deceptive and manipulative trading practices to boost the price and volume of the company's stock, the DOJ said. In some cases, members of the conspiracy encouraged investors to purchase companies' stock by giving the investors free-trading shares in return for buying blocks of shares at agreed-upon prices, thereby creating the illusion of trading volume and active investor interest. In other instances, members of the conspiracy bought and sold shares of the companies' stock between and among themselves to give the appearance of investor interest, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators also falsely manipulated the price and volume of each company's stock by making materially false and misleading statements in news releases and in spam e-mails distributed by Medlin and other spammers to tens of millions of U.S. e-mail addresses, in an effort to create artificial demand for the companies' stock, the DOJ said. In related actions, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Saquella and Kaplan for their part in the schemes to manipulate the price and volume of the companies' securities. Three other defendants, Steven P. Luscko, Gregory A. Neu, and Brian G. Brunette, have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced in federal court in Alexandria for their roles in related stock manipulation schemes. Luscko and Neu were each sentenced to five years in prison and Brunette was sentenced to one year in prison.
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A settlement of an inquiry into Lillyâs marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa could result in the company paying more than $1 billion to federal and state governments.
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A former senior executive at Marsh &amp; McLennan Cos. Inc. and two American International Group Inc. employees pleaded guilty yesterday to criminal charges in New York's probe of bid rigging and price fixing in the insurance industry.
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Negotiation will protect consumers from higher prices, after a firm tries to hike license fees.
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Investors in Germany's Bayer will get  one share in chemicals and polymers spin-off Lanxess for every  10 Bayer shares held, a German newspaper said, valuing Lanxess  at nearly 1.6 billion euros ($1.97 billion).
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems and Unisys have jointly filed a lawsuit against several major computer memory chip makers seeking compensation for alleged price fixing. The two computer makers individually filed lawsuits against the companies earlier this year but have now brought the cases together in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to a Friday court filing. The complaint names South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon Technologies of Germany, Japan's Elpida Memory and Mitsubishi Electric, Taiwan's Mosel Vitelic and Nanya Technology, and U.S. and European units of some of the companies. The lawsuit is one of several filed against DRAM makers after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an investigation into price fixing in 2002. That has already seen a number of guilty pleas by companies and executives and fines have been levied against some DRAM makers. Last year Samsung ElectronicsÂ wasÂ ordered to pay a $300 million criminal fineÂ and HynixÂ agreed to pay $185 million. InfineonÂ paid $160 million,Â and Japan's Elpida agreed toÂ pay a $84 million fine.
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Four Infineon (Quote, Chart) executives agreed to plead guilty to charges they conspired to fix prices in the computer memory sector, officials said Thursday.
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A probe into price fixing of LCD displays is expanding, according to press reports on Tuesday. Three countries are investigating the actions of companies that include: LG.Philips, Samsung, Sharp, and a joint venture between Seiko Epson and Sharp.
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WASHINGTON - Infineon Technologies AG, a German manufacturer of DRAM (dynamic RAM) has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $160 million fine for attempting to fix prices in the DRAM market, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.
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Business & money: Investors who buy shares in companies to agitate for change could face fines or even prosecution.
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German drugs and chemicals group  Bayer  said it planned to sell unit H.C. Starck to a  consortium formed by Advent International and the Carlyle Group  for 700 million euros ($908 million) plus debt.
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Payment to resolve allegations pharmaceutical firm overcharged government for top drugs.
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Eli Lilly may be close to resolving a government lawsuit over improper marketing.
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update Infineon Technologies will plead guilty to taking part in an international DRAM price-fixing conspiracy, which affected such companies as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, the US Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
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Eli Lilly and federal prosecutors are discussing a $1 billion fine to settle a civil and criminal investigation into the companyâs marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa.
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The Schering-Plough Corporation has agreed to pay $435 million and plead guilty to conspiracy to settle charges of marketing drugs for unapproved uses and overcharging Medicaid.