Government officials told the company there would "no liability for past conduct" and no "conclusion on continuing the payments," according to a summary of the case filed by the prosecution.

“It’s hard to believe, but this all could lead to impeachment…”  So says a high-level political appointee in the administration of Eliot Spitzer, Governor of the State of New York.  Once the poster boy for corporate ethics, Spitzer is struggling to overcome a scandal that has already done huge damage to his fledgling administration.

Recent tales of collapse of the subprime mortgage lending business - which focuses almost exclusively on the poor - have underlined just how much American business focuses on exploiting the poor. In a major cover story, Business Week examines "The Poverty Business: Inside U.S. companies' audacious drive to extract more profit from the nation's working poor."

With merger and acquisitions booming on Wall Street, Bloomberg reports that options trading in advance of deals is on the rise as well

There's growing concern among shareholder activists about the early smoke signals from a series of hearings by the Securities and Exchange Commission that could make it more difficult - if not impossible - to use the proxy process to promote environmental, social and governance reform.