Three former British bankers charged in an Enron-related fraud case pleaded not guilty on Friday in a federal court in Houston and were released on bail.
But in an unusual twist, the three men were released under the supervision of a defense lawyer.
"I'm not sure we've ever allowed that," Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith of US District Court said when Dan Cogdell, a lawyer for one of the bankers, David Bermingham, proposed taking responsibility for the three men until Friday. A hearing has been scheduled then to determine whether the men will be permitted to return to the UK pending their trial.
Bermingham and the other two bankers -- Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew -- are accused of conspiring with the former chief financial officer of Enron, Andrew Fastow, to enrich themselves at the expense of their employers. According to an indictment charging them with fraud, the three men made US$7.3 million from the scheme.
The three men worked at NatWest Bank, now part of Royal Bank of Scotland.
Their case ignited an outcry in the UK over the fairness of an extradition treaty with the US, which has not ratified it.
As a condition of their release into Cogdell's custody, Bermingham and Darby posted US$100,000 bail and Mulgrew posted US$50,000.
Mulgrew also offered his shares in a Glasgow soccer team worth US$345,000. The judge did not accept the offer, but he required that they all wear electronic monitoring devices until their next court appearance.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained