U.S. deepens scrutiny of banks’ roles in commodities
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street banks face the prospect of increased scrutiny of their commodity businesses as U.S. regulators and lawmakers on Tuesday pressed for a closer look at their roles in owning warehouses and in trading everything from oil …
Former Citibank employee sentenced for Salomon Brothers theft
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former Citigroup Inc employee was sentenced to more than four years in prison for stealing $1.3 million from a 98-year-old former managing partner at investment bank Salomon Brothers.
Wal-Mart, Google, others back U.S. bill to fight ‘patent trolls’
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Dozens of major U.S. companies, including Morgan Stanley, Google, Wal-Mart and Dell, on Tuesday urged lawmakers to pass bills that they said would protect new products against “extortive demands” on patents.
S&P 500, Nasdaq end up as tech gains; potash shares sink
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended higher on Tuesday, lifted by gains in the technology sector, while potash shares were the day’s big losers.
U.S., Liechtenstein bank reach settlement in tax evasion case
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. federal prosecutors and Liechtenstein’s oldest bank, Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, announced a $23.8 million settlement on Tuesday that halts any criminal prosecution of the bank, which admitted to helping U.S. clients e…
MF Global sues banks for restricting competition in CDS
NEW YORK (Reuters) – MF Global has sued 12 large banks, accusing them of restricting competition in the $25 trillion credit default swap market, the latest in a string of lawsuits alleging that banks impeded new entrants by blocking exchange trading of…
BHP faces $14 billion potash decision as price war looms
LONDON/WINNIPEG, Canada (Reuters) – Miner BHP Billiton’s new boss is facing his biggest test to date as he weighs the fate of a $14 billion Canadian potash project just as the collapse of a dominant potash cartel puts more pressure on already weak pric…
SEC sues ex-Santander executive, ex-Spanish judge for insider trading
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former Banco Santander SA executive and a former Spanish judge with insider trading over a proposed takeover of Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc on which the Spanish bank had…
Crackdown on risk hits Barclays, Deutsche
LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – A $9 billion rights issue and a fresh purge of assets are among the measures Britain’s Barclays and Germany’s Deutsche Bank announced on Tuesday to meet tougher rules on risk, raising concern among investors that regulators…
Cost controls help Pfizer, Merck weather weak quarter
(Reuters) – Big Pharma is still relying on belt-tightening to prop up financial results.
