India should legalise the giving of bribes to government officials to reduce corruption, according to a proposal by one of its leading economic advisers.

The Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group could not provide "basic information" on their own assets in the wake of the crisis or guarantee that they were not linked to "fraud or criminal activity", a Parliamentary committee has found.

Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P) has agreed to pay more than £57m for its part in the misselling of Keydata financial products.

A federal judge has denied former Control Components Inc. executive Han Yong Kim’s request to challenge foreign bribery charges against him from abroad. Kim, who lives in South Korea, had asked U.S. District Judge James V. Selna, to allow his lawyers to "specially appear” in Selna’s Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom to contest the charges, which include one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Travel Act, and two counts of violating the FCPA.

The US authorities are considering invoking anti-cartel laws against some of the world's biggest banks, in an investigation into whether they colluded to manipulate interest rates during the credit crisis. An investigation by the US Justice department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wall Street regulator, is examining if banks published misleading data to play down the effects of the escalating crisis between 2006 and 2008.

Glencore's plans for a $60bn (£37bn) flotation have been clouded by controversy after shareholders raised fears about disclosure at the commodities giant and criticised its approach to corporate governance.

Unilever and Procter & Gamble (P&G), the consumer goods giants, have been handed a €315.2m (£280m) fine for their involvement in a pan-European price-fixing ring. The European Commission (EC) found that the two companies, together with Germany's Henkel, had colluded to fix the price of washing powder in eight continental European countries between January 2002 and March 2005.

The leaders of England’s failed bid to host the 2018 World Cup were asked by one of Fifa’s most senior figures to pay for an education centre while negotiations were in progress, they have told The Times. Jack Warner, the vice-president of football’s governing body, is said to have suggested the move during talks with Lord Triesman and Sir Dave Richards, then chairman and deputy chairman of England 2018.

An investment company run by one of Britain’s best-known businesswomen stands accused of hiding steeply rising costs from shareholders. It is alleged that investors in Alliance Trust, headed by Katherine Garrett-Cox, are unaware of the true extent of the £2.4 billion fund’s soaring expenses due to the way they’re allocated.

Lindsay Owen-Jones, the former head of the French cosmetics group L'Oréal, is facing accusations of corruption and money laundering in a trading row dating back to the 1990s. A criminal complaint sent to the public prosecutor's office in Paris claims British-born Owen-Jones, who retired as president of the group last month, also misused company assets and was involved in an "abuse of trust".

The High Court in Auckland has today imposed penalties against two of the international airlines charged in a major cartel proceeding brought by the Commerce Commission. Cargolux International Airlines S.A. has been ordered to pay $6 million in penalties and $25,000 costs, while British Airways plc will pay $1.6 million and $100,000 in costs.

The whistleblower bounty provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act continue to reverberate through the corporate ethics and compliance community. Asked where the provisions rank among corporate ethics and compliance developments over the past two decades, Amy L. Goodman, a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office, answers: "It’s a 10 out of 10.” The provisions make the key ‘concerns’ list of most general counsels these days.

Leave aside the obvious point that Mr. Sokol might not have lived up to Berkshire's high ethical standards. Focus instead on this: If even Mr. Buffett can fail to appreciate a potential conflict of interest under his very nose, then ordinary investors need to realize just how pervasive and insidious conflicts are throughout the financial world.

David Sokol's actions in a $9 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will trigger a government investigation, a former federal enforcer said Thursday, but are unlikely to result in sanctions against him. Still, the ethical issues behind Sokol's trades in Lubrizol Inc. are magnified by the high-integrity reputation of his former boss, Omaha investor Warren Buffett. Thursday brought a firestorm of criticism that Sokol's stock purchases were improper and that Buffett should have reacted more strongly. "It's anti-capitalism. It's anti-America. It's wrong,” said Tim Mazur, chief operating officer of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association of Waltham, Mass., a national corporate ethics group. "It's just greed and self-interest.”

While insider trading cases have been attracting much of the financial headlines, there is another issue that will have a much greater effect on corporate bottom lines: bribery. The British Ministry of Justice has announced guidelines for the implementation of the far-reaching Bribery Act of 2010, which goes into effect July 1.