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SI introduces special investigation to check out green energy companies
 Fraudsters are making green from green. Almost daily, media headlines unfold yet another green energy ruse, Ponzi scheme or stock pump-and-dump. Governments and private investors here and around the world are spending billions to subsidize green energy projects, but the sustainability of these emerging technologies remain unproven and controls are often lax. Like most opportune scams, these swindlers tout well-calculated hypes for quick wealth in a slowly recovering economy. To enable prudent decision-making in green energy business transactions, SI has created special industry-focused investigation strategies that include searches of regulatory databases, green industry-specific media sources and other elements that piece together a subject's professional track record, reputation, litigation history and financial condition. Visit our Web site to learn more or order a green-industry background investigation.
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 Washington state Port of Pasco commissioners voted in December 2010 to cut ties with Green Power, Inc. and refused a $90,000 check from its CEO Michael Spitzauer when it was submitted two days past due, underlining a series of other missed deadlines, late payments and bad checks. And now Spitzauer is trying to convince them that "things are different" and offering to prepay the rent for six months. Green Power, which claims to have developed the technology to turn municipal waste into fuel, was evicted in September 2010 from the property it leased at the port.
The commissioners, worried about their reputations, said they want more proof that the company is financially viable before they give Spitzauer one last chance. Spitzauer purportedly told them that he's on the cusp of resolving most of his money problems as he has started to collect payments on $2 billion in orders to build the fuel conversion plants. The commissioners' concerns certainly are valid. Green Power's financial issues with the Port of Pasco are not the only ones plaguing the company and Spitzauer. Both are facing more than $18 million in lawsuits in Benton, Franklin and King counties, and have had numerous complaints brought against them at the Department of Labor and Industries for failure to pay employees or for paying them with bad checks. Court records also show outstanding warrants for money the company owes in unemployment taxes and industrial insurance for employees. Additionally, in August 2010, the Department of Ecology ordered the plant to shut down because it did not have the required permit for a synthetic fuel reactor. And Spitzauer still owes the state a $24,000 fine.
Media sources reported that Spitzauer's history of legal troubles date back to the early 1990s, and include serving three years in prison in Austria for fraud, and a stint in jail in the Seattle area. A 2009 Tri-City Herald piece stated that the Cheyenne Herald and the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Wyoming was Spitzauer's previous stomping ground) "quickly disclosed that the guy was a bigger liar than Jon Lovitz's character Tommy Flanagan, and that he convinced elected officials that the diesel he had probably just bought at Mini-Mart and poured into a separate receptacle was really the product of his belching and smoking machine." And apparently he forgot to mention that his "financing" had been dropped by the Texas bank he claimed would fund his project. But Cheyenne's mayor said that there was no need for a due diligence investigation...
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Tracking industry's hot topics
FCPA case challenges definition of "foreign official"
Attorneys representing former executives of California valve maker Control Components Inc. have launched what may be the most expansive challenge yet of how the U.S. government enforces the law that bans bribery of foreign officials. Judge James Selna (of the Toyota sudden-acceleration lawsuits fame) will rule next month on a motion to dismiss the 2009 FCPA action in which the Justice Department alleges that the defendants made at least 236 payments to various officials to win contracts in more than 30 countries, and then tried to destroy certain incriminating documents and disguise the bribes.
The defendants' motion, among other points, infers that the Justice Department's interpretation of the law is "so absurdly broad that even U.S. citizens living in the U.S. but working for a foreign owned company would be considered a foreign official" and argues that the state-owned companies which were the purported recipients of the alleged bribes fall beyond the scope of the FCPA's definition of a "foreign official." A "foreign official" under the FCPA is "any officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, or of a public international organization, or any person acting in an official capacity for or on behalf of any such government or department."
NLRB approves settlement in Facebook firing case
A case that received widespread attention for its groundbreaking attempt to set legal limits on employers' social media policies was settled February 7, 2011. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that the respondent/defendant American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc. agreed to revise its overly-broad rules to ensure that they do not improperly restrict employees from discussing their wages, hours and working conditions while not at work, and not discipline or discharge them for engaging in such activities. The company also promised that employee requests for union representation will not be denied and that there will be no threat of discipline for requesting union representation. The damages for the employee's alleged unfair discharge stemming from the posting of vulgar comments about a supervisor were resolved through a separate, private agreement between the parties.
What's coming next month
We've finished customizing and testing our expanded assets investigation product and will be showcasing it within the next few weeks. Stay tuned. |
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