Investigations
HSBC admitted moving Sinaloa cartel cash through custom-built boxes and stripping sanctions paperwork for Iran; the DOJ's $1.9 billion settlement charged no individual, and the case was dismissed in 2017.
Investigations
Harry Markopolos handed the SEC a 29-point memo proving Madoff's returns were fraudulent in 2005; five SEC exams later, it was Madoff's own sons who turned him in, in December 2008, over a bonus dispute.
Investigations
A jury awarded Exxon Valdez spill victims $5 billion in 1994; the Supreme Court cut it to $507.5 million in 2008, a sum smaller than 1.25% of Exxon's profit the year before.
Investigations
A 1984 gas leak at Union Carbide's Bhopal plant killed thousands after its refrigeration, flare tower, and scrubber systems were all found disabled or undersized on the same night, and the man India charged with homicide never stood trial.
Investigations
After a 2010 suicide wave at its iPhone-assembly campuses, Foxconn's first response was safety netting around the dormitories. Pay raises and an outside audit came after.
Investigations
Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary paid a US-designated terrorist group for years and pleaded guilty to a $25 million corporate fine with zero individual prosecutions, until a Colombian court convicted seven of its former executives in 2025.
Investigations
Court records show Peanut Corporation of America shipped salmonella-positive products at least a dozen times before a 2008-2009 outbreak killed nine people and triggered the largest food recall in U.S. history.
Investigations
A century-old hook PG&E never climbed up to inspect started the Camp Fire while the company was still under federal criminal probation for the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion that killed 8 people.
Investigations
A tiny Estonian branch of Denmark's largest bank moved roughly €200 billion in mostly Russian-linked money over eight years while a whistleblower's warnings sat unread for three.
Investigations
A DAX-30 fintech worth more than Deutsche Bank collapsed when €1.9 billion in claimed Philippine bank accounts turned out never to have existed, but Germany's financial regulator had spent 2019 investigating the reporters who found that out, not the company.
Investigations
Honda's own recall paperwork puts one Takata inflator's failure rate at up to 50 percent, and the Justice Department says Takata knew its propellant was degrading years before it told anyone.
Investigations
GM engineers knew about a defect that could cut engine power and disable airbags as early as 2001, quietly fixed it in 2006 without changing the part number, and didn't recall a single car until 2014.