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CONTACT:
Robert S. Willoughby
Pomerantz LLP
rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

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The Sh5.3 billion scandal at Afya House has taken a new twist after it emerged that registration details of companies involved in the transactions have gone missing from the State Law Office.

Staff at the Companies Registry were yesterday unable to trace the files for Estama Investments, registered as an EPZ company, and Life Care Medics.

The two companies were beneficiaries of cash meant for patients, expectant mothers and new-born babies.

Records of a third supplier, Medafrica, were non-existent, raising questions about its identity.

Without the files, it becomes impossible to unmask the people behind what may turn out to be the biggest scandal in the Jubilee administration.

“Thousands of patients and doctors have suffered from this theft as unearthed by the auditor. This is totally unacceptable and we must know who the thieves are,” said Ouma Oluga, the secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union.

It was not immediately possible to get an input from the Attorney General, who is the head of the State Law Office, relating to the missing files.

An official who attended to the request by The Standard was only able to get the registration numbers of the companies but said additional information such as directorship were only contained in the physical file.

In another failed attempt to get details of sampled companies, an officer from the Registry said the missing files may have been displaced before offering to locate them herself.

Reforms undertaken at the Companies Registry, a department at the office of the AG, which include digitisation of records were anticipated to tackle the “lost files” menace and enhance transparency.

Missing company files have in the past frustrated investigations into major corruption scandals even slowing the progress of court proceedings.

Estama Investments Ltd was the biggest beneficiary of the payments after receiving Sh1 billion. The Standard was only able to establish that it was registered in June 19, 2008.

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Julius Mwatu, the ICPAK vice chairman. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI 

By  JAMES NGUNJIRI, Ngunjirij@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted 
Thursday, October 27  
2016 at 
20:51

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The scam is familiar: Someone pretending to be an IRS agent calls and says you owe back taxes and must pay up now or risk arrest.

Federal authorities announced Thursday that a three-year investigation has identified dozens of people involved in a fraudulent scheme run out of India-based call centers that scammed at least 15,000 people out of more than $300 million.

The Justice Department has indicted 56 people and five Indian companies on charges including wire fraud and money laundering in connection with the international phone scam. Authorities announced that 20 people had been arrested and that they would be seeking extradition for those accused in the scheme who remain in India.

The scammers, based in Ahmedabad, India, targeted immigrants and the elderly for the calls and pretended to be IRS agents, Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said Thursday. Once a victim was on the phone, the call center operators “threatened potential victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay taxes or penalties to the government,” according to the indictment.

The callers culled personally identifiable information about their victims from sources, including social media, and used systems that spoof the phone numbers from which they were calling to make their requests appear legitimate, prosecutors said.

Those who agreed to pay were told to withdraw cash, then purchase prepaid debit cards from various retail stores and provide the unique serial numbers for the cards to the fake agents. The scammers often used stolen personal information from other victims to register the debit cards and then move the money via wire transfers, prosecutors said.

Indian law enforcement arrested 70 people earlier this month in a similar but separate scam operation.

Prosecutors will try to seek monetary judgments against those charged, but the 15,000 victims in this case are unlikely to be able to recover the stolen money, prosecutors said.

“The sad thing about these scams is often once the money is paid, it’s gone,” Ms. Caldwell said.

Although these arrests will put a dent in call center scam operations, Ms. Caldwell said, it will not entirely shut down such operations.

“A lot of the folks we are arresting today can be replaced by other people,” she said.

Investigators encouraged people to remain cautious about such scams.

“Do not let your guard down. These people are persistent,” said Russell George, inspector general of the U.S. Treasury inspector general for tax administration. “I do expect these people are resilient and will not give up.”

One victim in the scheme was called multiple times over a 20-day period as the callers demanded payments for what they said were tax violations. He ended up paying the scammers $136,000.

Anyone who receives such a call should hang up and report the call to authorities, Mr. George said.

“There is a basic truth: It is the consumer’s information,” Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the F.C.C., said of the necessity of protecting internet users who want more control over how companies treat their private information. “It is not the information of …
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NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Rent-A-Center, Inc. (“Rent-A-Center” or the “Company”) 





                            


                            


                                  


      


      


      


      


      


      


      


                                  


                                    RCII, +1.89%





                            


                                  


      


      


      


      


      


      


      


                                         (isin:US76009N1000). Investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

The investigation concerns whether Rent-A-Center and certain of its officers and/or directors have violated the federal securities laws.

[Click here to join a class action]
On October 11, 2016, Rent-A-Center announced that the Company was experiencing issues with its point-of-sale systems (“POS”) that would negatively impact Rent-A-Center’s sales. On this news, Rent-A-Center stock fell $3.70, or 28.73%, to close at $9.18. Then, on October 26, 2016, Rent-A-Center announced financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2016 that fell significantly below estimates, citing, in part, POS issues that had caused system outages.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.


        CONTACT:Robert S. Willoughby  
Pomerantz LLP  
rswilloughby@pomlaw.com
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SOURCE  Pomerantz LLP

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“BRAZIL is back in business,” proclaimed Abílio Diniz, chairman of BRF, a Brazilian pork and poultry giant, at a recent investor shindig. Really? The economy, mired in recession since mid-2014, is not expected to stir before the end of the year—and then only sluggishly. After rebounding in the first half of 2016, industrial production plummeted again in August. Retail sales fell by more than forecast. Firms expect to hire just 100,000 temporary workers in the run-up to Christmas, 3% fewer than last year’s already low tally. BRF’s own domestic operations are hardly a picture of health. Sales dropped by 5% in the second quarter, year on year (though this was offset by rising global revenues).

For all that, Mr Diniz is not alone in his optimism. Surveys point to rising confidence among bosses and consumers alike (see chart). Investors’ spirits are up—and with them the São Paulo stockmarket, which has returned to levels last seen in 2012. The real has strengthened by a third against the dollar since January.

The collective mood swing has less to do with the real economy, and more with realpolitik. In August the left-wing president, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached, ending months of uncertainty. Her pragmatic deputy, Michel Temer, will serve out the remaining 26 months off her term.

Brazil Inc wasn’t always anti-Rousseff. When she came to office in 2011 and lavished cheap credit and tax breaks on firms, bosses did not complain. They rebelled when her constant meddling first distorted, then crippled, the economy.

The Temer government looks both more fiscally responsible than its predecessor, and more responsive to businesses’ concerns. Bosses gush about easy access to ministers, even the president himself. They applaud the administration’s commitment to narrow the confidence-sapping budget deficit, which exploded to 10% of GDP on Ms Rousseff’s watch. Mr Diniz’s remarks came after Mr Temer’s proposed constitutional amendment to freeze government expenditures in real terms for 20 years handily cleared the first of four congressional votes. It passed the second on October 25th. A complementary reform to over-generous public pensions is in the works.

A promise of fiscal rectitude has helped dampen inflation expectations, allowing the central bank to cut interest rates for the first time in four years on October 19th, from 14.25% to 14%. Further cuts to Brazil’s high rates—the number-one bugbear of many a Brazilian boss—are expected. So too are other market-friendly measures, such as easing onerous local-content requirements for some industries and enlisting the private sector to build and run roads, ports and airports.

Still, notes Carlos de Freitas of the National Confederation of Commerce, a lobby group, “The real economy does not live on expectations alone”. For business to thrive, bosses never tire of repeating, Brazil must also tackle assorted structural deficiencies. Besides costly credit, perennial grumbles include shoddy infrastructure, unskilled workers, convoluted taxes, rigid labour laws and Byzantine bureaucracy.

Some take matters into their own hands. Daimler, a German carmaker, teaches English to technicians so that they can read technical manuals. Fed up with waiting for Rio de Janeiro’s municipal government to build a promised access road to its research centre, General Electric paid for it to be paved. Singaporean shareholders of Aegea, a water utility, could not understand why a firm with revenues of 795m reais needed a private jet—until Hamilton Amadeo, its boss, showed them it was cheaper than relying on commercial flights and cars once the cost of executives’ lost time was added in.

Most companies cannot afford language classes, let alone jets. All abhor red tape. In the office of Guilherme Afif, chairman of SEBRAE, a group for small businesses, a printout of all the rules even tiny firms must obey takes up fully five metres of shelf space. The average Brazilian corporation spends 2,600 man-hours annually complying with the tax code, ten times the global figure (see article).

For decades, fixing these gripes has eluded even popular presidents. Mr Temer isn’t one, at least outside business circles. Some bosses urge him to undertake tough, early action. Others reckon that an all-out assault on workers’ rights or states’ tax-raising powers do not behove a president who lacks the legitimacy of an elected leader. Better to stick with emergency fiscal measures and leave deeper reforms to his successor. Many would be content with stop-gaps: a law to make outsourcing easier, say, rather than an overhaul of the sacrosanct labour code dating back to 1943.

In the meantime, euphoria over Ms Rousseff’s exit is tempered with caution. A tractor-maker in the southern state of Santa Catarina could use an extra 50 staff, its boss admits. But he is loth to hire, lest Mr Temer stumbles and confidence evaporates. “We are hoping for the best,” echoes the boss of a big education provider who has also ordered a hiring freeze. “But we are planning for the worst.”

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* Securities regulator seeks amendment to give him more
power

* Israel banned sale of binary options to Israelis in March

* Hauser disturbed by “ugly phenomenon” that hurts people

By Tova Cohen

TEL AVIV, Oct 27 Israel’s securities regulator
wants to expand his authority so he can ban the sale of binary
options overseas by online trading firms based in Israel, a
business that is drawing international criticism over
allegations of illicit practices.

The Israel Securities Authority in March became the world’s
first regulator to prohibit the risky transactions from being
offered domestically. Now its chairman, Shmuel Hauser, has asked
the attorney general to consider amending the law to give him
power to target groups marketing them abroad as well.

A Reuters special report published last month shed light on
the extent of the industry and accusations by London-based
lawyers who say hundreds of their clients were duped out of vast
sums of money by some Israeli firms.

“The Israel Securities Authority is working vigorously with
other enforcement agencies to deal with this issue,” the ISA
said in a statement.

“Hauser is very disturbed by this ugly phenomenon that hurts
innocent people and unfortunately fuels a negative image of
Israelis and Jews.”

An amendment to the law would likely require parliamentary
approval. A spokeswoman for the ISA said she could not estimate
how long such a process might take. The attorney general’s
office was not immediately available for comment.

Binary options involve placing a bet on whether the value of
a financial asset – a currency, a commodity or a stock – will
rise or fall in a fixed timeframe, sometimes as short as a
minute. Many large operators are based in Israel.

The fast-growing industry sells itself as a legitimate
investment, but clients of some of the firms say they are little
more than high-pressure scams. They accuse the companies of
transferring money between accounts without approval and in some
cases of preventing them from withdrawing their own funds.

Because they are based online and allow trading from
smartphones or tablets, the industry has attracted a vast number
of users who are not professional dealers.

After numerous complaints, Hauser banned the online trading
firms from selling binary options to Israelis, but he did not
have the authority to prevent them from marketing overseas.

Other countries, including Belgium, have since banned binary
options trading. The United States requires binary options to be
traded on regulated markets. Elsewhere, online operators
continue to operate freely, and are effectively unregulated.

Despite the ban on selling to Israelis, several of the
biggest binary options businesses are either run from Israel
with Israeli technology, sales and support staff, or are
registered to Israeli citizens.

Calling binary options trading “in essence gambling”, Hauser
in the statement quoted from the biblical Book of Isaiah, saying
“your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of
you.”

All possible measures must be taken to stop them, he added.

The ISA said it is aiding securities regulators around the
world to deal with binary options “criminals” when they request
such aid.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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AT LEAST a dozen unregulated financial gambling sites – many derided as scams – are now being fronted by Scottish shell firms.

Online brokers which offer all-or-nothing bets on currency and stock markets have set up shop in Aberdeen, Glasgow and especially Edinburgh as they take advantage of Scotland’s soft-touch corporate registration regime.

Gamblers make fixed-odd bets on financial markets via so-called “binary options” websites.

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