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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – It is not just gays who are cheering New York’s law legalizing gay marriages that passed over the weekend. The state’s tourism industry is also applauding the move, with many advertising gay marriage specials.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to launch “NYC I Do,” a campaign selling the city as a premier gay wedding destination. Specials are already spreading across the state. The Le Parker Meridian has a “Love has No Boundaries/Born This Way” wedding package.

A report in May from the New York’s Senate Independent Democratic Conference estimated that 21,309 resident gay and lesbian couples would get married over the next three years, and the state would earn nearly $400 million during that time from gay and lesbian couples getting married in the state. That total included tourism, wedding bookings and state licensing fees.

The law goes into effect on July 24.

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United States (ProPublica) – by Marian Wang

Even as anger over governmental corruption has exploded into protests across the Middle East, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been working to weaken the law that bans companies from bribing foreign officials.

That effort, which has been going on for months, recently got ratcheted up when the Chamber hired former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to lobby specifically on “possible amendments to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” according to Mukasey’s lobbying registration document. The FCPA, passed in’77, prohibits U.S. companies and foreign companies whose securities are traded on U.S. exchanges from paying bribes to foreign officials.

The U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, in a report last fall , said that both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission had become “increasingly aggressive in their reading of the law” within the last decade, bringing more FCPA enforcement actions than ever, netting higher fines and filing more cases against individual company employees.

That’s something the Justice Department has trumpeted as an achievement: “Our FCPA enforcement is stronger than it’s ever been—and getting stronger,” Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s criminal division said at a conference in November. In the 2010 fiscal year, half of all penalties won by his division were from foreign bribery cases. (The Washington Post just yesterday published a rundown of some recent actions.)

The Chamber of Commerce argues that aggressive enforcement of the anti-bribery law makes U.S. businesses less competitive than their foreign counterparts, though the law also applies to some foreign companies. The Chamber is pushing for Congress to make changes to the law, such as defining “foreign official” and requiring “willfulness” for corporate criminal liability.

Butler University Assistant Professor of Business Law Mike Koehler used to represent clients facing FCPA charges. He told me he agrees with some of the Chamber’s objections, but doesn’t think it needs a legislative fix.

The law is fine, Koehler told me. But the Justice Department and SEC “are continuing to push the envelope” with enforcement, applying the law in ways that Congress didn’t originally intend. One example of that, he said, is that about 60 percent of current FCPA cases involve payments made to employees of state-owned or state-controlled companies. Those people shouldn’t be considered “foreign officials,” he said.

Koehler said his main issue with FCPA enforcement is that the allegations are almost never subject to judicial scrutiny because these cases always settle. Asked why this is, given that most defendants are giant multinational companies with enough resources to take the corruption charges to court, Koehler said that the “the cost of aggressively mounting a legal defense based upon the statutes, elements, and facts of case are too risky.”

However, a few FCPA challenges are currently making their way to court, some accusing the Justice Department of using too broad a definition for “foreign official.”

Mark Mendelsohn—formerly the Justice Department’s chief FCPA enforcer and now in private practice—told the Wall Street Journal last week that he expects current enforcement trends to continue. He cited the Mideast protests as part of a “growing recognition of what people commonly call the corrosive effects of corruption on development and democracy and democratic institutions.”

The U.K. is currently finalizing its own anti-bribery law, which would seem to address the Chamber’s objections about an uneven playing field. The Chamber, however, writes in its report that U.S. authorities may try to apply even more pressure to companies “so as not to be outdone” by Britain in the area of anti-corruption enforcement.

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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced today that Ms. Bubbles Inc., of Los Angeles, Calif., has agreed to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $40,000.

The penalty agreement settles staff allegations that the firm knowingly failed to report to the CPSC immediately, as required by federal law, that its children’s hooded jackets were sold with drawstrings through the hood.

The penalty agreement has been provisionally accepted by the Commission.

Children’s upper outerwear with drawstrings, including sweatshirts and jackets, poses a strangulation hazard that can result in serious injury or death. In January 2009, CPSC and Ms. Bubbles announced the recall of 55,000 children’s jackets with drawstrings through the hood.

In February 1996, CPSC issued drawstring guidelines to help prevent children from getting entangled and possibly strangling on hood and neck drawstrings in upper outerwear, such as jackets and sweatshirts.

In May 2006, CPSC’s Office of Compliance announced (pdf) that children’s upper outerwear with drawstrings at the hood or neck would be regarded as defective and a substantial risk of injury to young children.

Federal law requires manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to report to CPSC immediately (within 24 hours) after obtaining information reasonably supporting the conclusion that a product contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard, creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death, or violates any consumer product safety rule, or any other rule, regulation, standard, or ban enforced by the CPSC.

In agreeing to settle the matter, Ms. Bubbles Inc. denies CPSC’s allegations that it knowingly violated the law.

Also available: CPSC Commissioner Nancy Nord’s statement on the vote.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – While many government purchases are often overpriced because of corrupt practices, Canada’s planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets is underpriced by $12 billion. However, the opposition is using the underpricing to hit the Harper government.

Ottawa estimates the total cost of purchasing the stealth fighters over 30 years will be only $9 billion, plus another $7 billion spread over 20 years for maintenance. However, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reckoned the total cost would actually reach almost $30 billion.

Page attributed the discrepancy to the Department of Defense’s failure to include cost of set-up and logistics and to correctly estimate amounts for maintenance, and failure to calculate lifespan to 30 years for maintenance.

The Liberal Party, seizing Page’s report as an opportunity to hit the Tories, said the party would cancel the F-35 contract if they won the next election. The Liberals had been gearing to trigger a spring election by planning to reject the Conservative Party’s federal budget proposal and possibly pushing for a no-confidence motion because of the Tories’ alleged breach of House ethics.

The Liberals said the wrong estimates of the F-35 jets price is another proof that the Tories often mislead Canadians and Parliament, following two similar accusations over an alleged doctored report by International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda and non-disclosure of details of corporate tax rate cuts.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – After exceeding their American neighbors in household debts, Canadians have tempered their borrowing. According to a report released Wednesday by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, household debt in November 2010 increased only by 0.27 percent.

It was the slowest monthly growth in 15 years, while the third quarter household debt growth was the slowest in almost a decade.

Benjamin Tal, CIBC deputy chief economist, said the data indicates that Canadians have learned their lesson and are starting to reduce their debt levels.

However, despite the slowdown of credit growth, mortgage credit levels rose at almost 7 percent.

Tal said the reduction in demand for mortgage credit was more evident among first time homebuyers. He attributed the smaller demand for mortgage credit to changes in mortgages rules put in place in mid-January by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Because of Canadians’ better control over their finances, consumer bankruptcy also showed a downward trend after bankruptcy filings increased in early 2008.

With the slower pace of borrowing, the debt-to-income ratio of Canadian households now stands at 146 from the previous 148.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The U.S. Treasury Department was defending itself Friday against allegations in a news report that it granted permission for numerous corporations to do business with Iran and other blacklisted countries.

The State Department classifies some of the countries as state sponsors of terrorism.

Officially, the U.S. government participates in an embargo against countries on the list.

Unofficially, the Treasury Department allowed U.S. firms to close about 10,000 deals in the past decade to sell to the countries under an exception for humanitarian aid.

Products sold to the blacklisted countries under the loophole in the law include cigarettes, chewing gum, Louisiana hot sauce and body-building supplements, according to the report in The New York Times.

U.S. firms have exported about $1.7 billion in goods to Iran in the past decade, according to government figures.

The report is a result of a three-year investigation by the newspaper that included a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

A Treasury Department spokesman downplayed the importance of the deals.

Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey said in a statement that the exports were “trivial in the context of our Iran policy.”

“This effort is having its intended impact,” Levey said. “Iran’s leadership is worried about its isolation from the international financial system and the other effects of sanctions.”

A primary goal of the embargo is to force Iran and other countries to comply with international law on nuclear proliferation and arms exports.

Cuba, North Korea and Sudan also are on the list of sanctioned countries.

Nuclear non-proliferation treaties say the Iranians would be allowed to develop nuclear material only for electrical power generation and medical treatments. They also must allow international inspections.

So far, the Iranians have denied entry to international inspectors.

In addition, the U.S. government claims to have evidence the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration and several Western nations extended the embargo against Iran this year by banning more Iranian companies from doing business with U.S. firms.

American companies that have used the humanitarian exception to do business in Iran include Kraft Foods, Pepsi, Bank of America, Citigroup, American Pulp & Paper Corp. and Hercules USA Inc.

Congress approved the humanitarian exception in 2000 that exempts agricultural and medical supplies from the sanctions.

The New York Times reported that the Treasury Department, under pressure from industry lobbyists, interpreted the law more broadly than Congress intended.

In one case, an American company bid on a pipeline project with permission of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to help Iran sell natural gas to Europe.

The project does not appear to fall under the exception in the federal law for agricultural or medical supplies.

In another case, Iranian Olympic athletes train with sports rehabilitation equipment purchased from an American firm.

The Treasury Department decides each application for exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

In the some cases, politicians trying to protect their home state businesses appear to have influenced the Treasury Department, The New York Times reported.

One example was a medical waste disposal firm in Honolulu. In 2003, its owner ordered 200 graphite electrodes from a Chinese firm that was blacklisted for selling missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The electrodes from China Precision Machinery Import Export Corp. were less expensive and easier to find than the ones sold in the United States, explained Samuel Liu, the medical waste plant’s owner.

The Treasury Department initially planned to deny the company’s application for an exception, according to The New York Times report.

While the electrodes were still on board a ship being sent to Hawaii, Liu made a $2,000 contribution to the office of Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.

Inouye then wrote a letter to the Office of Foreign Assets Control asking for an exception to the sanctions law for the medical waste plant.

Shortly afterward, the Treasury Department granted the exception.

A spokesman for Inouye said the campaign contribution was unrelated to Inouye’s intervention for the medical waste firm.

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Hundreds of workers at Aurora’s Grootvlei mine have started getting paid their salaries, after nine months of no pay, according to a news report.

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During the third quarter, 3,216 layoffs were tracked in the Mortgage Employment Index report from Mortgage Daily . At the same time, hirings in real estate finance were 2,286. As a result, the level of mortgage employment decreased by 930 in the third quarter.

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NY, NY, United States (AHN) – According to a report Tuesday by the New York Times, baseball agent Scott Boras’ company allegedly handed out thousands of dollars in loans to the families of prospects from the Dominican Republic.

The Times report said the loans could mean that Boras or his company may have broke Major League Baseball Players Association rules.

The Times said that Boras issued a statement that acknowledged his company had “aided” players and families in the past, but he did not address whether loans were made.A

According to the report, loans of more than $500 per year made by agents to players and their families are forbidden unless the reason for the loan is revealed to the union.

A spokesman for the players’ association declined to comment in the report.

“This is a serious issue that raises concerns about the business practices of agents who have played a prominent role in the game,” a spokesman for Major League Baseball said in a written statement to The Times.

Domingo Ramos told The Times that the company typically represented a few top Dominican prospects each year and made loans to a majority of them. The money was usually used for food, housing and other needs, he said.

Ramos is a former big league player who works for Boras’ company.

“Sometimes we get it back, sometimes we don’t,” Ramos told The Times. “Sometimes, it’s tough to get it back. It’s as simple as that.”

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Third-quarter mortgage delinquency of at least 60 days was down 27 basis points from the second quarter, TransUnion reported. It was the third consecutive quarterly improvement, according to the report. In addition, TransUnion said the change was “the largest quarterly decline since the fourth quarter of 2006.”

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