criminal charges

Federal regulators on Tuesday accused four people of inflating the value of Bank of Montreal's trading portfolio to falsely enhance its financial results.

One of the four pleaded guilty to related criminal charges and agreed to a civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors and taxpayers angry about the government bailout of seemingly mismanaged financial firms can probably count on a wave of criminal indictments in the coming months, say white- collar crime experts.

The trial on the most serious criminal charges in the multibillion-dollar failure of the Parmalat dairy empire opened Friday, more than four years after the company acknowledged a crushing debt that would lead to Europe's biggest corporate bankruptcy.