(Image credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images)Three men were indicted this week for shipping millions of packs of untaxed contraband Marlboro cigarettes that were part of a sting conducted by the FBI.
Jia Yongming, Yazhou Wu, and Ricky Le were indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Monday in a U.S. District Court in New Jersey. They are charged with conspiracy to transport contraband cigarettes and trafficking in goods bearing counterfeit marks.
Thomas Dunn, an attorney for Yongmin, had no comment. An attorney for Wu and Le could not be reached for comment.
Read more: How to Spot Fake Luxury Goods
Last July, the U.S. Attorney’s Office arrested the three California residents in Los Angeles and charged them with conspiring to ship and distribute more than 4,600 cases of Marlboro and Marlboro Light cigarettes.
Like many other states, California requires a stamp to be placed on packs of cigarettes to show the state tax has been paid. California had a $0.87 tax on each pack of cigarettes while the illegal operation had been underway for over a year.
The cigarettes were shipped from China to ports in Newark, N.J., and New York City. From warehouses, they were headed for their final destination, California, where they were delivered by undercover FBI agents, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The agents were paid about $225,000 in commissions for delivering five loads of cigarettes.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the state of California lost more than $2 million in taxes from this conspiracy.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria, which owns the Marlboro brand, said this had the “classic elements” of a counterfeiting cigarette case.
“In this case, it shows you that this kind of activity is invariably driven by higher and higher excise taxes,” Sutton said.
This case began two months after the last Federal excise tax increase on cigarettes — to 62 cents per pack — in April 2009.
In the president’s budget this week, there is a proposal to raise the Federal tax again by 94 cents to $1.95 a pack. If passed, Sutton said it “will definitely create a significant incentive for additional counterfeit cigarette smuggling.”
Sutton said Altria supported this investigation.
“The counterfeit product almost always comes from China,” Sutton said. “You see it in L.A., south Florida, the port of Newark – because of the New York City market. The criminals are sophisticated in counterfeit cigarette trafficking.”
Sutton said counterfeiters rely on organized crime units to distribute the products.
“You see counterfeit trafficking in dense urban centers, like New York and Chicago, because you have established criminal organizations in place for distribution of the product,” he said.
(Image credit: Lottogopher.com)Those Californians who missed out on the state’s first Powerball drawing on Wednesday, which did not yield a winner, will have another chance at the estimated $60 million jackpot during the second drawing on Saturday.
Homebound residents or anybody else who doesn’t feel like visiting a retail store can purchase tickets through Lottogopher.com.
Based in California, Lottogopher.com is subscription-based service that allows state residents to purchase lottery tickets online. Strict laws regulate brick-and-mortar retailers who sell lottery tickets, prohibiting the sale of lottery tickets for other than the retail price or phone and Internet sales.
Lottogopher.com is completely legal because it’s analogous to a messenger service, said founder and CEO James Morel, 42.
Because state lotteries are restricted to residents, Morel said he hopes to expand his business in some of the other 42 states that have lotteries. On his radar are states with high per capita lottery spending like New York, Texas and Massachusetts.
The company, based in West Hollywood, has about ten full-time and part-time employees.
Here’s how it works. Customers purchase one of two subscriptions: $12 a month or $99 a year. That’s in addition to the cost of the tickets. California residents can tell Lottogopher.com their lottery numbers or choose the automated, random-number option. They purchase lottery tickets at face value with a credit card and Lottogopher.com employees go to a retailer to purchase their tickets.
Lottogopher.com doesn’t mail your lottery tickets, but you can keep track of your numbers and ticket history in your user dashboard.
“Instead of losing your ticket in your glove compartment, you can see upcoming drawings and past tickets,” Morel said.
Winnings less than $600 are credited to your Lottogopher account within 24 hours. Customers can cash in by having a check sent to you or your winnings credited to the credit card you used.
“We do all the dirty work for you,” Morel said, adding the company is bonded and insured.
Winnings over $600 require a payout from a regional State Lottery office and must be collected in person by a Lottogopher representative on your behalf. The company then sends a check in your name.
With the addition of the popular Powerball game to California, Lottogopher.com doubled sales with Wednesday’s drawing.
Last year, Illinois became the first state to offer online lottery ticket sales, and it’s not expected to be the last.
But Morel expects many brick-and-mortar retailers will push back against official online sales in other states. He hopes Lottogopher.com can fill the gap, reaching customers who don’t already go to a retail store for lottery tickets.
“We’re opening the market to a whole new group of people,” he said, adding that there are competitors based in other countries illegally offering similar services to Americans.
Morel’s customers tend to be young buyers who are comfortable with online purchases and prefer instant gratification; and older clients who don’t have the means or transportation to get to a retailer.
“We’re making it customer-friendly, simple and modern. It’s about making things easy,” Morel said. “If you made things easy, you could sell more lottery tickets and raise more money for schools and education. You give the customers what they want, which is what we’re doing.”
A logo of entertainment-to-telecoms conglomerate Vivendi is seen on the main entrance of the company's headquarters in Paris July 23, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Christian HartmannBy Malathi NayakSAN FRANCISCO | Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:31pm EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Activision Blizzard Inc's CEO, who is shelling out $50 million of his own money in an $8.2 billion deal to buy back most of Vivendi's stake, said the world's largest video game publisher will be freer to pursue acquisitions and grow after emerging from its French parent's wing.
Bobby Kotick, one of the highest-paid and longest-running corporate chief executives in an industry ravaged in recent years by the rise of mobile gaming, told investors on a Friday conference call he thinks the company will be stronger as a result of the deal.
Activision shares surged 15 percent to close at $17.46, the highest since September 2008, on the Nasdaq.
Activision will have "the focus and flexibility to drive long-term shareholder value," Kotick said. "The importance of this transaction is that it gives us the opportunity to really reward our public shareholders and you see that in the accretion."
Vivendi agreed on Friday to sell most of its stake in the publisher of the blockbuster "Call of Duty" franchise for $8.2 billion, paving the way for a broader split of the French conglomerate's media and telecoms assets.
The deal, which will reduce the French firm's stake to 12 percent from 61 percent, fulfills Kotick's longstanding wish to buy back the company he had built into a games powerhouse since 1991. Activision merged with Vivendi's games division in 2007.
But the industry is struggling with shrinking demand for videogames as gamers shift away from traditional console titles to mobile games and free-to-play offerings online.
Vivendi is selling the shares in Activision, also known for its "Skylanders" title, for $13.60 each, a 10 percent discount to Thursday's closing price. Analysts said, however, the deal was positive for the company because it removed longstanding uncertainty around how Vivendi would deal with its U.S. unit.
There's no longer "this overhang, that this struggling parent company is going to use Activision and its resources to its own benefit to the detriment of Activision's shareholders," R.W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said. "That makes the shares worth more."
BIG MONEY
Activision did not reveal their future plans on Friday.
Kotick and Co-Chairman Brian Kelly are leading an investor group that will separately purchase about 172 million Activision shares, or a 24.9 percent stake, from Vivendi for $2.34 billion. The group includes Fidelity Investments and Chinese web portal Tencent, which will be a passive investor without a seat on the board, gaining Activision big-name backers.
Kotick and Kelly will personally invest $50 million each. The CEO received total compensation of $64.9 million last year, making him one of the top-paid U.S. CEOs. He has been a director and CEO of Activision since February 1991.
Activision itself is funding the deal with roughly $1.2 billion in cash and $4.75 billion by raising new debt, Chief Financial Officer Dennis Durkin told analysts.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan have agreed to finance the deal, the company said.
"You've got a transaction that occurred at a discount and you've got insider buying as well. So when you look at all of that, the combination of it ends up being a positive one for existing shareholders," said Ed Williams at BMO Capital.
As of June 30, Activision had $4.55 billion in cash and investments and no debt. Under the deal, the company will pay Vivendi about $5.83 billion for its shares, leaving Activision with more than $3 billion in cash held mostly abroad.
The deal will reduce Activision's taxable income as it takes on some historical operating losses in Vivendi's U.S. holding company, Durkin said.
LONG-TERM VIEW
Consoles still account for more than half of the $66 billion - and growing - world gaming market, according to research firm DFC Intelligence. But playing games on smartphones and tablets, or as an offshoot to online social networks, is becoming more and more popular.
Sales of console devices and games have shrunk from month to month since 2012, chiefly because of aging console devices.
The industry is pinning its hopes for resurgent profits on Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp's next-generation video game consoles, which will go on sale this year-end holiday season.
But sales of the Wii U by Nintendo, released in late 2012, have been lackluster so far.
With the industry's shift away from consoles toward mobile and social gaming, casual games made by companies like Nintendo were more vulnerable to a slowdown than the mass-market action hits like "Call of Duty," said Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia.
Shooting games like Activision's immersive "Call of Duty" have not been impacted by that, he said. "That part of the industry is about to re-accelerate."
But others like R.W. Baird's Sebastian warned that Activision needed to protect its market share and cash flow.
"This console cycle will shrink versus the last cycle," Sebastian said. "You don't want to get too lost in the excitement of the launches and forget that in the living room there's a lot more competition from tablets, TVs and Internet. So I'm cautiously optimistic."
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak, additional reporting by Liana Baker in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
The parents of former child star Amanda Bynes are deeply concerned their daughter may hurt herself or others unless they are allowed to assume control over her medical care and finances, court filings have shown.
The petition filed by Richard and Lynn Bynes not only details her public incidents of disturbing behaviour, including several arrests, but also reveals she fears that she is being watched by smoke detectors and devices in the dashboard of her car.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen M Reiser delayed ruling on the conservatorship petition, stating that there was no rush to act because the actress is under a two-week psychiatric hold at a hospital. Judge Reiser scheduled a hearing on the issue for August 9 and said he also wants to meet one-on-one with Bynes before making a decision.
Bynes was put under the psychiatric hold on Monday after authorities said she set a fire on the driveway of a home in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, where she grew up.
In May, Bynes was arrested in New York for allegedly throwing a marijuana bong out of the window of her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment. Police had come to the building to investigate a complaint that she had been smoking marijuana in the lobby.
Last year, Bynes was charged in Los Angeles with driving on a suspended licence. The licence had been suspended after she was charged with driving under the influence and misdemeanour hit-and-run.
Before moving to New York, Bynes "was extremely paranoid about being 'watched'", the filing states. "She would cover smoke alarms with towels, tape windows shut, and cover her car's dashboard with cardboard and tape out of fear that cameras were watching her from inside these places."
Bynes, who was 13 when she landed her own hit variety programme, The Amanda Show, on the Nickelodeon cable network, went on to star in the TV series What I Like About You and several films, including What A Girl Wants, Hairspray and She's The Man. She has publicly stated that she has retired from acting. Her last film credit was 2010's Easy A, which starred Emma Stone.
Bynes amassed four million US dollars (£2.6 million) in savings but has spent 1.2 million dollars (£780,000) in a short amount of time, her parents' petition states. They state they suspect some of the money has been spent on drugs and plastic surgery, citing bills they have received from doctors and large payments their daughter has made to people they do not know.
"Amanda has profound issues with her body image and is obsessed with the idea that she (and others) are 'ugly,'" the petition states, adding that some of the statements have been made about members of her own family. She talks incessantly about cosmetic surgeries that she wants to have completed," the filings state. "We are concerned that the surgeries she wants to have are dangerous and detrimental to her health."
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
A box from Amazon.com is pictured on the porch of a house in Golden, Colorado July 23, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Rick WilkingBy Alistair BarrSAN FRANCISCO | Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:17pm EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc shares hit a record on Friday after quarterly results increased optimism about the Internet retailer's U.S. business.
The company reported a second-quarter net loss and weaker international growth on Thursday. However, its domestic business expanded quickly and profit in the region improved.
"Their biggest market looks really healthy," said Matt Nemer, an analyst at Wells Fargo.
Amazon is trying to turn itself from an online retailer into a broader technology company offering consumer gadgets like tablets and cloud computing services to corporations and governments. It is doing this while expanding in competitive overseas markets such as China.
It is spending billions of dollars on this expansion, which takes a toll on earnings. However, investors have so far trusted that Chief Executive and Founder Jeff Bezos can pull it off and produce big profits in the future. That's help pushed Amazon shares to new records.
The stock rose 2.7 percent to $311.70 on Friday afternoon and hit a record of $313.62 earlier in the day.
Amazon said North American sales jumped 30 percent to $9.5 billion in the second quarter while operating profit in the region was $409 million, up from $344 million a year earlier.
Sales of apparel and consumables are growing very strongly and this is helping bring shoppers to Amazon's website more frequently, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said.
Amazon Prime, the company's subscription program that offers free two-day shipping for $79 a year in the United States, is also growing very strongly, the CFO added.
The company's cloud business, Amazon Web Services, was among the fastest growing part of the company. Amazon includes results from this unit in its "Other" segment for reporting purposes and revenue from this area jumped 61 percent to $892 million in the second quarter.
"AWS continues to power through, driven by broader adoption from larger enterprises," said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie. "That certainly helps the gross margin."
Amazon does not disclose AWS profits, but Wall Street reckons the business has higher profit margins than the company's main retail business. So as AWS grows, Amazon's margins expand.
Amazon's gross profit margin - a closely watched measure of earnings that excludes several expenses - was 28.6 percent in the second quarter, the highest in the company's 19 year history, according to Michael Graham, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity.
AWS growth helped, but also more sales of higher-margin digital products and the expansion of the company's online marketplace for third-party merchants.
Some on Wall Street are still concerned that Amazon will spending heavily to fuel growth and sacrifice profits. However, Szkutak gave doubters some hope.
"Frequently we would be asked historically, is double-digit operating margins possible? And we still think it's possible," the CFO said. "But ... if a good, high single-digit operating margin gets us to better, higher free cash flow over time, that's fine too."
Amazon doesn't usually take notice of short-term profit concerns on Wall Street, but executives occasionally address the issue to reassure investors, Wells Fargo's Nemer said.
"They could double their profit margins in the next quarter if they wanted to," Nemer added. "But they would have to stop investing in all these interesting areas."
(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Bernard Orr)
A senior official says the president has not made a decision on who will replace current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. His term expires early next year.
The president's pick is highly anticipated, given the Fed chairman's impact on economic policy.
Among the leading candidates for the job are former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers and Janet Yellen, the Fed's current vice chairwoman. Yellen would be the first woman to lead the Fed.
The official insisted on anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak by name about internal deliberations.
Bill Turnbull reckons the BBC's move north has been great for his morning news programme, Breakfast.
The presenter works on one of the shows the BBC decided to move to Media City in Salford, but despite some criticisms of the shake up, Bill believes it was a good plan.
He said: "For Breakfast it's been a great success. A lot of people were expecting it to fail but it hasn't at all.
"If you watch the show you wouldn't know that it was coming from somewhere different. The audience has held steady and improved on occasions and we have a very happy team. And the building we work in is the best I've had in 35 years."
Moving north has also been a good move for his family: "The Peaks are a really beautiful part of the country and people have been very welcoming towards us.
"Even when it's raining, it's beautiful here and there are some good breweries down the hills from us. Our Labradors used to be a bit shy of getting in the car but now they love it, because they know they're going to get up to the hills."
Bill, a keen beekeeper who will be fronting a Horizon show on the subject in August, said: "People always ask about my bees. More than anything else I do, people want to know how my bees are."
:: Horizon: What's Killing Our Bees? is on BBC Two on Friday, August 2.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Cate Blanchett has said she isn't a "needy" actor and didn't expect assurances from Woody Allen on the Blue Jasmine set.
The Hobbit actress stars in director Woody's new film about a woman who reconnects with her sister after a crisis.
She said: "I'm not particularly needy as an actor. I'm not doing it because I want to be told that I'm good."
Woody agreed and said of his choice of leading lady: "I needed a great actress and when you think of great actresses in the world, Cate comes into mind immediately. Cate is one of those people that are great, she was great before she met me and she will be great after. I really have very little to say to her."
Australian Cate explained she'd worked on her accent for the film by spending time in New York: "I drank way too much wine sitting in restaurants by myself."
The actress said that despite having 12 films due out between now and 2015, she found it difficult to go to work: "I never want to work. Even when you're presented with these great opportunities, I think, 'I really love being in my pyjamas with the kids'."
Explaining why she still signed up to films, she said: "Woody Allen picks up the phone, what am I going to say? I'm not going to be that schmuck who says, 'Mmmm, maybe not.' I get out of my pyjamas and I go to work."
Blue Jasmine is released in UK cinemas on September 20.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Boeing vice president and 787 Dreamliner chief production engineer Mike Sinnett poses with model of Boeing's 787 Battery Design Improvements after a news conference in Tokyo March 15, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Toru HanaiWASHINGTON | Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:43pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) said on Friday it was rotating five executives in its commercial airplanes division, including Mike Sinnett, the chief engineer on the company's 787 Dreamliner, which was banned from flight earlier this year after its battery system showed a risk of catching fire.
Sinnett will become vice president of product development, while Bob Whittington, now the chief engineer on Boeing's 777 airliner, will take over as chief project engineer for the 787, the company said in a note to employees.
The memo said the moves were intended to give each of the five people involved an opportunity to broaden their experience, increasing "the bench strength of our teams."
Sinnett was the face of the 787 during the stormy months this year when regulators grounded the plane after two lithium-ion batteries burned on two of the high-tech 787s in less than two weeks.
The $207 million, 250-seat plane returned to the skies in April only to be beset by further issues. On July 12, a parked 787 owned by Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at Heathrow airport.
Investigators traced that incident to pinched wires in an emergency beacon and regulators instructed airlines to inspect or replace the units. Since then, other reports of fires have surfaced.
"There is never a perfect time to make changes," said Mike Delaney, vice president of engineering, about the timing of the moves.
He said the timing reflected Boeing's effort to spread its engineering base into three "independent but cooperative" centers in Washington state, South Carolina and Southern California.
Spokesman Marc Birtel said the shift in responsibilities was "in no way punitive."
Boeing said Larry Schneider will be the vice president and chief project engineer for the 777, succeeding Bob Whittington. Schneider was previously deputy chief project engineer on the 787.
Todd Zarfos will be vice president of engineering functions and leader of the Washington state design center, succeeding Dan Mooney, who was recently named vice president of the South Carolina design center. Boeing is looking to fill Zarfos' role as vice president of engineer for commercial aviation services.
John Hamilton, the vice president of regulatory administration, will add the role of aviation safety and security.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa and Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Rob Brydon has insisted The Trip is not a realistic reflection of himself and Steve Coogan.
The Gavin And Stacey funnyman and the Alan Partridge star played fictional version of themselves in their Bafta-winning BBC series directed by Michael Winterbottom in which they embarked on a restaurant review tour of the north of England.
Rob said: "It's all a performance. I think a lot of people thought with the last one that it was some kind of reality show.
"But it is a performance and it's constructed. The story is all written and then we just fill in stuff around that.
"It's a great way to work. It's quite intense when you're doing it because you work short but full days, but great fun."
The Welsh actor has just completed filming on the second series.
He said: "We went to Italy and we travelled all around and ate a lot of great food, went to some beautiful restaurants and quarrelled with each other. That's the long and the short of it."
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm was joined by British Olympic champions and a host of television presenters in tackling the Virgin Active London Triathlon.
Mel C completed the VIP Sprint event - a 750 metre swim, 20 kilometre bike ride and five kilometre run - in one hour, 31 minutes and 20 seconds and then hinted she might tackle the full Olympic distance next year.
"Once again the Virgin Active London Triathlon has been an incredible day," said the pop star.
"This is my second year competing and will definitely not be my last. Roll on next year... Olympic distance?"
Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams and Jade Jones, who won taekwondo gold at London 2012, both enjoyed expanding their sporting horizons.
Adams, the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold, said: "I feel really good after doing my first triathlon and would definitely love to do it again next year."
Jones said: "I really enjoyed taking part in the Virgin Active London Triathlon. Hopefully it will inspire more people to take part in something which they wouldn't normally do."
Former Wales rugby captain Gareth Thomas completed the cycling leg in the team event to help raise money for former teammate Matthew Watkins, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Stavros Flatley, who rose to fame through Britain's Got Talent, Cathryn Dresser from the Great British Bake Off and television presenter Zoe Hardman all took part.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
The agreement ends one of the biggest-ever trade disputes between China and Europe — a row that threatened to escalate into a full-blown trade war involving European wines and to disrupt EU-China relations.
The settlement comes after negotiations that began in June when the EU announced that duties averaging 47 percent on Chinese-made solar panels, cells and wafers would come into effect in August. The EU said then that China was selling its products in the EU market at below-cost prices and harming the European solar panel industry.
In announcing the settlement, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said that he was satisfied with the offer by the Chinese solar panel exporters and that the agreement would stabilize the European solar panel market.
"We have found an amicable solution that will result in a new equilibrium on the European solar panel market at a sustainable price level," he said.
The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products said in a statement that the price promise represents the majority will of Chinese companies and that it would allow Chinese manufacturers to continue to export their products to Europe and retain fair market shares. The chamber described the negotiations as "arduous" and "meticulous."
"China's solar panels industry is always committed to maintaining a fair international trade environment," the statement said. "It opposes trade protectionism and supports resolving disputes through negotiations."
Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said China welcomed the settlement. The EU is the largest export market for Chinese solar panel products, according to Shen.
In Europe and the United States, the price drop in the solar panels market in recent years has wreaked havoc among EU and U.S. manufacturers, forcing several out of business.
More than a fifth of all jobs — or about 24,000 — in Germany's once-burgeoning solar panel industry have been lost since 2011. A recent government report found that solar industry revenue dropped to 7.34 billion euros ($9.53 billion) last year from 11.9 billion euros in 2011 and blamed the price fall on cheap solar panels made in China.
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the most powerful EU leader, spoke out strongly against the duties, fearful they would result in a Chinese backlash.
In early July, China's commerce ministry opened an anti-dumping probe into wine exports from Europe in response to the EU's planned tariffs on Chinese solar panels.
___
Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
Image credit: Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News via Getty ImagesAn elderly couple in Brooklyn, N.Y., found a huge pile of cash–what they reckon was $100,000–in a bank’s safety deposit box.
Joe Valinoti, 82, and his companion, Kathleen Ricigliano, 81, said they opened a safe deposit box account with Sovereign Bank in February. Valinoti said he wanted to safely store some personal documents.
“I made my funeral arrangements with papers, in case my daughter needed them, God forbid,” Valinoti said.
After filling out the forms for the box, he returned two weeks later to store his documents. He said a branch manager led the pair downstairs to the safe deposit boxes.
The manager pulled out a “long, skinny box” and left the couple alone in a room to store the documents.
“When she felt it, it didn’t feel right to her,” Valinoti said about Ricigliano. “She stuck her hand in there and there were all $100 bills. She got very, very nervous and didn’t know what to do.”
He said the two looked at each other, and opened the door to the manager standing outside to show him the box.
“The first thing he said was, ‘You’re very honest people’,” Valinoti said. ”He put the box some place and that was the last we saw of the box.”
They asked for a receipt or documentation to prove they had turned in all the money, for the sake of the rightful owner. But the manager refused, Valinoti said, explaining that it had to go to “higher-ups.”
After Valinoti got a new box, he and Ricigliano wanted to know more about what happened to the money, telling some family and friends about the discovery.
The state personal property law says found property must be turned over to police, the New York Daily News reports. If the property is unclaimed after a year, it could belong to the person who found it, but there are other laws that govern bank safe deposit boxes.
A spokeswoman for Sovereign Bank said it has been trying to reach the “legitimate owner” of the property that was found.
“In the meantime, we’re acting as custodian of the property in accordance with our procedures and the law,” she said. “Since federal and state privacy laws keep us from being able to share customer information, we can’t comment about the specifics of this situation. What we can say is that if it turns out the owner of the property can’t be located for whatever reason, we’ll follow the abandoned property statues under New York State law.”
Kimberly Schechter, Novick and Associates PC in New York, said the issue would be who owned the box and whether that person is still alive. If the person it not alive, it could belong to that person’s estate.
Novick recommends that any person in New York who thinks they have lost property should visit the website of the state’s Office of Unclaimed Funds.
Idris Elba has admitted that playing Nelson Mandela has been the "biggest challenge" of his life.
The Luther star portrays the former South African leader in Justin Chadwick's Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, which also stars Naomie Harris as his screen wife Winnie.
"The role was definitely the biggest challenge of my life. I look and sound nothing like the man, but hopefully I've pulled it off," he said.
"To call the prospect of playing Nelson Mandela intimidating would be to put it lightly. But it's a massive honour to play this saint amongst men."
Idris admitted he had initial doubts about signing on for the highly sought after role, but changed his mind after hearing that the former South African president was a fan of his previous show The Wire.
"I was honestly confused about why they came to me. I thought, 'You can't be serious! You chose me out of everyone you could have gone to?'," he recalled.
"Then I found out that Nelson Mandela was into The Wire. I thought, 'It's amazing - he might have kicked back and watched The Wire box set!'."
Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, based on Mandela's 1994 autobiography of the same name, is set to premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival in September before being released in the UK in January 2014.
:: The third series of Luther and the box set featuring all three seasons will be available on DVD from July 29.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:34pm EDT
n">(Reuters) - BP Plc appeared to gain an edge in the battle over liability for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill on Friday, after Halliburton abandoned one of its arguments that tried to paint the British oil company as unconcerned about well safety.
Halliburton, which did the cementing work for BP's well, on Thursday pleaded guilty to destroying evidence of internal tests it conducted showing there was no difference between the effectiveness of putting six or 21 casing centralizers on the well.
Centralizers help stabilize the well bore during cementing and, prior to the settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Halliburton had sought in court proceedings to pin blame on BP for the blowout because of its decision to save "time and money" by using only six centralizers.
A payment of just $200,000 to the Department of Justice ends the DOJ's case against Halliburton. At the same time, the plea seems to hurt Halliburton as it seeks to settle its share of private claims over the disaster, currently estimated at $1.3 billion.
John Coffee of Columbia Law School said it would now be less plausible for Halliburton to argue in any litigation between the two companies that it had warned BP about something for which the evidence was destroyed.
"This is a zero sum game between BP and Halliburton, particularly when it undercuts (Halliburton's) argument they had an honest theory of why the cement wouldn't hold," Coffee said. "If it's an honest theory, why would you destroy all the evidence?"
Nonetheless, Halliburton shares rose nearly 4 percent on Friday, since its plea announcement late on Thursday coincided with it unveiling a $3.3 billion share buyback.
Scott Gruber, analyst at Bernstein Research, said the company appeared more confident its oil spill liability was manageable in making a repurchase offer that would represent 8 percent of its outstanding shares at current prices.
James West at Barclays believed Halliburton could even issue new debt to accelerate its buyback program. "Though we think a resolution of the Macondo liability is likely required before (Halliburton) makes any significant changes to its capital structure," he added in a note to investors.
TRIAL TO RESUME
Halliburton, BP and rig owner Transocean Ltd are all defendants in a federal civil trial that began in February to apportion blame and set damages for Macondo. The trial, under Judge Carl Barbier, is scheduled to resume on Sept 30.
According to Margaret Thomas at Louisiana State University's law school, Barbier could admit Halliburton's criminal admission in the case and respond in number of ways, including monetary sanctions. She said he could even go so far as to strike Halliburton's pleadings.
"That's incredibly rare and it's a last resort that happens in very few cases, but he is empowered to do it," she said.
The disaster caused 11 deaths and led to the largest U.S. offshore oil spill. BP and Transocean previously entered guilty pleas and agreed to pay respective criminal fines of $1.26 billion and $400 million. Both declined to comment on the Halliburton plea.
The civil penalties and damages are expected to run into the many billions of dollars, on top of what BP has already spent on clean-up and compensation.
BP is struggling through a separate legal battle over the payment of claims to people and businesses for spill-related losses. A federal appeals court is considering the case, and Halliburton said this process was impeding its push to settle its own liability through talks.
"The pace of those settlement discussions has recently slowed as we understand BP is challenging certain provisions of its settlement," Halliburton said in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Halliburton also disclosed that its legal fees and other expenses related to Macondo totaled $223 million, of which $190 million is covered by insurance. The company said that last quarter it reached a favorable agreement with some insurers that allows it to continue being reimbursed for covered legal costs.
The prospects of a global settlement of the civil litigation by all parties seems remote, since Barbier has not yet ruled on whether BP or its co-defendants were guilty of gross negligence. Some observers believe he will not issue findings on negligence until the trial's next stage ends, probably in early 2014.
The trial is in re to case: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010 in the same court, No. 10-md-02179. The evidence case is U.S. v. Halliburton Energy Services Inc, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 13-00165.
(Reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco, Mica Rosenberg in New York, Kathy Finn in New Orleans and Andrew Callus in London; editing by Andrew Hay and Bob Burgdorfer)
Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:34pm EDT
n">(Reuters) - BP Plc appeared to gain an edge in the battle over liability for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill on Friday, after Halliburton abandoned one of its arguments that tried to paint the British oil company as unconcerned about well safety.
Halliburton, which did the cementing work for BP's well, on Thursday pleaded guilty to destroying evidence of internal tests it conducted showing there was no difference between the effectiveness of putting six or 21 casing centralizers on the well.
Centralizers help stabilize the well bore during cementing and, prior to the settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Halliburton had sought in court proceedings to pin blame on BP for the blowout because of its decision to save "time and money" by using only six centralizers.
A payment of just $200,000 to the Department of Justice ends the DOJ's case against Halliburton. At the same time, the plea seems to hurt Halliburton as it seeks to settle its share of private claims over the disaster, currently estimated at $1.3 billion.
John Coffee of Columbia Law School said it would now be less plausible for Halliburton to argue in any litigation between the two companies that it had warned BP about something for which the evidence was destroyed.
"This is a zero sum game between BP and Halliburton, particularly when it undercuts (Halliburton's) argument they had an honest theory of why the cement wouldn't hold," Coffee said. "If it's an honest theory, why would you destroy all the evidence?"
Nonetheless, Halliburton shares rose nearly 4 percent on Friday, since its plea announcement late on Thursday coincided with it unveiling a $3.3 billion share buyback.
Scott Gruber, analyst at Bernstein Research, said the company appeared more confident its oil spill liability was manageable in making a repurchase offer that would represent 8 percent of its outstanding shares at current prices.
James West at Barclays believed Halliburton could even issue new debt to accelerate its buyback program. "Though we think a resolution of the Macondo liability is likely required before (Halliburton) makes any significant changes to its capital structure," he added in a note to investors.
TRIAL TO RESUME
Halliburton, BP and rig owner Transocean Ltd are all defendants in a federal civil trial that began in February to apportion blame and set damages for Macondo. The trial, under Judge Carl Barbier, is scheduled to resume on Sept 30.
According to Margaret Thomas at Louisiana State University's law school, Barbier could admit Halliburton's criminal admission in the case and respond in number of ways, including monetary sanctions. She said he could even go so far as to strike Halliburton's pleadings.
"That's incredibly rare and it's a last resort that happens in very few cases, but he is empowered to do it," she said.
The disaster caused 11 deaths and led to the largest U.S. offshore oil spill. BP and Transocean previously entered guilty pleas and agreed to pay respective criminal fines of $1.26 billion and $400 million. Both declined to comment on the Halliburton plea.
The civil penalties and damages are expected to run into the many billions of dollars, on top of what BP has already spent on clean-up and compensation.
BP is struggling through a separate legal battle over the payment of claims to people and businesses for spill-related losses. A federal appeals court is considering the case, and Halliburton said this process was impeding its push to settle its own liability through talks.
"The pace of those settlement discussions has recently slowed as we understand BP is challenging certain provisions of its settlement," Halliburton said in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Halliburton also disclosed that its legal fees and other expenses related to Macondo totaled $223 million, of which $190 million is covered by insurance. The company said that last quarter it reached a favorable agreement with some insurers that allows it to continue being reimbursed for covered legal costs.
The prospects of a global settlement of the civil litigation by all parties seems remote, since Barbier has not yet ruled on whether BP or its co-defendants were guilty of gross negligence. Some observers believe he will not issue findings on negligence until the trial's next stage ends, probably in early 2014.
The trial is in re to case: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010 in the same court, No. 10-md-02179. The evidence case is U.S. v. Halliburton Energy Services Inc, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 13-00165.
(Reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco, Mica Rosenberg in New York, Kathy Finn in New Orleans and Andrew Callus in London; editing by Andrew Hay and Bob Burgdorfer)
Assistant U.S. Attorney Antonia Apps told a federal judge in Manhattan that investigators had "voluminous" evidence against SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Conn.-based firm owned by billionaire Steven A. Cohen.
She said the evidence included "electronic messages, instant messages, court-ordered wiretaps and consensual recordings."
The plea was entered by Peter Nussbaum, SAC's longtime general counsel, and came a day after the company was charged with wire and securities fraud, accused of making hundreds of millions of dollars illegally. Federal prosecutors described a culture at SAC that permitted, if not encouraged, insider trading.
Prosecutors said the victims were large companies whose inside information was stolen and traded upon. The next hearing was set for Sept. 24.
Outside court, lawyers for the company including Nussbaum declined to comment and paced on a sidewalk looking for cars to pick them up as the media followed.
SAC said in a statement after the charges were announced Thursday that it will continue normal operations. It said it "has never encouraged, promoted or tolerated insider trading and takes its compliance and management obligations seriously." The company declined through a spokesman to comment Friday.
Cohen has not been charged and was not in court Friday. He is referenced in court papers only as the "SAC owner" who "enabled and promoted" insider trading practices.
At a news conference Thursday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said SAC "trafficked in inside information on a scale without any known precedent in the history of hedge funds."
"When so many people from a single hedge fund have engaged in insider trading, it is not a coincidence," the prosecutor said. "It is, instead, the predictable product of substantial and pervasive institutional failure."
He declined to comment on whether Cohen would be charged, saying: "I'm not going to say what tomorrow may or may not bring."
From 1999 to 2010, the company earned hundreds of millions of dollars illegally as its portfolio managers and analysts traded on inside information from at least 20 public companies, Bharara said.
The possibility that the criminal case could topple the firm, which once managed $15 billion in assets, led the prosecutor to note that the government was not seeking to freeze SAC's assets. Bharara added that prosecutors were "mindful to minimize risk to third-party investors."
Still, the government in one lawsuit sought SAC's forfeiture of "any and all" assets.
The charges came less than a week after federal regulators accused Cohen in a related civil case of failing to prevent insider trading at the firm. While the Justice Department's action targets SAC but not Cohen directly, the civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission seeks to effectively shut him down by barring him from managing investor funds.
___
Associated Press writers Christina Rexrode in New York and Marcy Gordon in Washington contributed to this report.
One of 11 remaining copies, the Bay Psalm Book is predicted to sell for $30 million at Sotheby's.A rare psalm book from 1640 could fetch between $15 million to $30 million at a Sotheby’s auction on Nov. 26 in New York.
“It’s going to be far and away the most expensive book ever sold,” David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby’s auction house, told ABCNews.com.
The Bay Psalm Book, which is the first book printed in what is now the United States, comes from the Old South Church in Boston, one of two copies of the book in its collection.
“One copy, the copy we are keeping, was bequeathed to us by our fifth minister, the Reverend Thomas Prince,” Nancy Taylor, Old South Church’s senior minister and CEO, told ABCNews.com.
Sotheby’s specialists used comparables to value the book. “We have sold books as much as $11.5 million in the past, which are far less rare than this,” Redden said. The last Bay Psalm Book was bought at a Sotheby’s auction in 1947 for $151,000 by Yale University.
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“One is so rare, no one could conceive of just owning one,” Redden said. “It’s the greatest rarity in the book world. Nothing is desirable as the Bay Psalm Book.”
Old South Church’s particular Bay Psalm Book is one of the best copies and in excellent condition, but what makes it incredibly sought after is its origin.
When the Bay Psalm Book was first printed, 1,700 copies were made, and few survive. “It would literally have been used to pieces by the early Puritans,” Redden said.
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While the Bay Psalm Book is not on everybody’s lips, Redden expects that many institutions, such as Princeton or the University of Texas, and private book collectors would desperately desire to have one. However, he is certain that it will be an American buyer to win the auction.
“It’s a great story, the idea that in the middle of the wilderness the first Americans were able to produce a quite elaborate book,” Redden said. “It’s the first American book made in America.”
Old South Church is hoping to use profits from the sale to help pay for building repairs and support its ministries. The church will maintain ownership of its other 2,000 rare books and manuscripts.
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Sotheby’s plans to give people many opportunities to see the hymnal and will exhibit it widely before its November auction.
“For people in the book world, this is an earthquake,” Redden said.
MUMBAI | Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:43am EDT
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Lanco Infratech Ltd (LAIN.NS) has started a process to restructure debts totaling 75 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) after economic weakness impacted the performance of some of its businesses such as power and engineering and construction.
If the process is approved by its lenders, Lanco would be the second debt-laden company to go for a major loan restructuring within nine months, after lenders to wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (SUZL.NS) in November agreed to restructure about 110 billion rupees of its debt.
Lanco, which produces power, builds roads and constructs residential and commercial buildings, has asked banks to restructure the debt, a company statement said on Saturday.
The Business Standard newspaper earlier said Lanco had started discussion with its bankers to restructure debt worth 90 billion rupees.
The company, which acquired Australia's Griffin Coal Mining Co for about $760 million in 2011, said the debt restructuring would involve Lanco Infratech as a standalone unit and would not impact any of its units including the Australian business.
Banks bring cases to the so-called corporate debt restructuring process to negotiate relaxed repayment terms with struggling borrowers.
Many lenders have expressed worry about loans to the power, commercial real estate, construction, aviation, textile and metals sectors, which are among those hardest-hit by slowing growth and sluggish policymaking that has deterred investment.
"The current adverse macro-economic situation that has been prevailing in India since last 12 months has affected the performance of LITL's EPC business as well as the subsidiary business," the company said referring to the engineering, procurement and construction business.
"We expect this situation to remain for another 18 to 24 months time," it said, adding the restructuring process will help Lanco to complete its ongoing projects on time.
Lanco, which had total debt of 336 billion rupees as of the end of March, posted losses in the last two financial years, as the weak Indian economy, growing at its slowest in a decade, hit infrastructure investment.
Project bottlenecks, largely because of problems in acquiring land, and high funding costs, have also sapped investment in the infrastructure industry in Asia's third-largest economy.
(Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Robert Birsel and David Holmes)
MUMBAI | Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:43am EDT
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Lanco Infratech Ltd (LAIN.NS) has started a process to restructure debts totaling 75 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) after economic weakness impacted the performance of some of its businesses such as power and engineering and construction.
If the process is approved by its lenders, Lanco would be the second debt-laden company to go for a major loan restructuring within nine months, after lenders to wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (SUZL.NS) in November agreed to restructure about 110 billion rupees of its debt.
Lanco, which produces power, builds roads and constructs residential and commercial buildings, has asked banks to restructure the debt, a company statement said on Saturday.
The Business Standard newspaper earlier said Lanco had started discussion with its bankers to restructure debt worth 90 billion rupees.
The company, which acquired Australia's Griffin Coal Mining Co for about $760 million in 2011, said the debt restructuring would involve Lanco Infratech as a standalone unit and would not impact any of its units including the Australian business.
Banks bring cases to the so-called corporate debt restructuring process to negotiate relaxed repayment terms with struggling borrowers.
Many lenders have expressed worry about loans to the power, commercial real estate, construction, aviation, textile and metals sectors, which are among those hardest-hit by slowing growth and sluggish policymaking that has deterred investment.
"The current adverse macro-economic situation that has been prevailing in India since last 12 months has affected the performance of LITL's EPC business as well as the subsidiary business," the company said referring to the engineering, procurement and construction business.
"We expect this situation to remain for another 18 to 24 months time," it said, adding the restructuring process will help Lanco to complete its ongoing projects on time.
Lanco, which had total debt of 336 billion rupees as of the end of March, posted losses in the last two financial years, as the weak Indian economy, growing at its slowest in a decade, hit infrastructure investment.
Project bottlenecks, largely because of problems in acquiring land, and high funding costs, have also sapped investment in the infrastructure industry in Asia's third-largest economy.
(Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Robert Birsel and David Holmes)
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