WASHINGTON — Six oil and gas service companies and a prominent freight-forwarding company agreed to pay about $236 million in criminal and civil penalties in one of the largest corporate bribery cases ever to focus on a single industry, federal authorities said Thursday. Most of the bribes were paid to circumvent local rules and regulations,
allowing the oil service companies to import equipment and vessels into
foreign countries, which included Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil,
Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Russia and Turkmenistan.

NEW YORK (Fortune) — When it comes time to sentence Bernie Madoff on Monday morning, the spotlight will shift — briefly but inevitably — to Denny Chin, the federal judge who will determine the term of the Ponzi scammer’s incarceration. Because Madoff eschewed a trial and instead pleaded guilty, on March 12, to 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, theft, and perjury, Chin avoided the attention that would have come if he had been ruling on objections and refereeing courtroom dust-ups day after day.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — The top cop tracking the government’s $700 billion bailout program said Tuesday that he has opened 20 criminal investigations and six audits into whether tax dollars are being pilfered or wasted.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, released a 250-page report detailing a long list of concerns about government efforts to prop up hundreds of banks, Wall Street firms and auto companies.

HOUSTON – FBI agents have arrested the chief investment officer of troubled Stanford Financial Group, accusing Laura Pendergest-Holt of obstructing a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud investigation.

The SEC has been investigating allegations of an $8 billion investment fraud involving Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford’s financial group. Stanford was served legal papers by FBI agents last week and ordered to surrender his passport, but has not been charged with a crime.