U.K. to Probe Prosecutor Over Failures in Oil Bribery Case

Ellen Milligan
Fri., December 10, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- The U.K.’s Attorney General will probe the country’s top fraud prosecutor after judges found serious failings in a major bribery investigation.

The government’s chief legal adviser is “deeply concerned” about a ruling published Friday, which criticized the Serious Fraud Office for its relations with a U.S. fixer and for not disclosing key documents. A London appeals court quashed one of the convictions in the Unaoil bribery case because of failings made by the prosecutor.

The Attorney General “will be discussing the implications with the director of the Serious Fraud Office urgently,” according to a statement. It “has today commissioned an independent review of the issues highlighted including disclosure failings at the Serious Fraud Office.”

A spokesperson for the prosecutor said it would fully cooperate with the review. This investigation supersedes a review the SFO had planned to conduct itself.

The probe places the spotlight on SFO director Lisa Osofsky. It also comes after a string of failings for the agency, including the collapse of its trial against two former Serco Group Plc directors due to disclosure errors.

In Friday’s ruling, judges described the prosecutor’s dealings with an unofficial fixer as “wholly inappropriate” and said its refusal to provide key documents in the case was a “serious failure” especially as “some of the documents had a clear potential to embarrass the SFO.” They also said they weren’t suggesting any SFO official “deliberately sought to cover anything up.”

Company fined after exposing Montana workers to arsenic


Fri., December 10, 2021

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — A company that turned mining waste into roofing materials at a Montana plant was fined and ordered to conduct medical monitoring of workers on Friday, after pleading guilty to a criminal charge that it exposed employees to arsenic.

Tinley Park, Illinois-based U.S. Minerals was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to pay a $393,200 fine and will be on probation for five years, according to court records. The company pleaded guilty in August to negligent endangerment, a misdemeanor violation of the federal Clean Air Act.

Prosecutors said U.S. Minerals continued to poison its workers by exposing them to arsenic despite repeated warnings from regulators. Long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic can lead to skin cancer and cancer in the bladder and lungs, according to the World Health Organization.

In its guilty plea, the company acknowledged it “negligently placed another person in the imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.”

From 2013 to when it closed in June 2021 the company's Anaconda plant converted mining waste known as black slag — a byproduct of a century of copper smelting in the town — into roofing materials called Black Diamond Abrasive Products.

Under a plea agreement, U.S. Minerals plants in Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas and Louisiana will be under increased oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during a five-year probationary period.

The company would also have to monitor the health of former employees of the Anaconda plant during that time.

Employees who take advantage of the medical monitoring program would not give up the right to pursue civil litigation against U.S. Minerals, under the agreement.

Five of six employees tested at the Anaconda plant in July 2015 had elevated levels of arsenic, according to a 2016 report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. At the time, respiratory protection was provided but not required, and there was no running water or handwashing stations at the plant

The company was earlier fined nearly $107,000 by OSHA for violations in 2016.

Montana’s health department ordered the plant to temporarily close in February 2019 after at least two workers had elevated arsenic levels in their urine in 2018.

A YEARS SALARY FOR THE 99%

$75,000 Bonuses Are Headed Into the Pockets of Hilcorp Energy Workers

David Wethe
Fri., December 10, 2021,


(Bloomberg) -- Oil driller Hilcorp Energy Co. is lavishing $75,000 bonuses on employees as reward for reaching multi-year expansion and production goals.

Workers will receive another $25,000 to donate to charities of their choice, closely held Hilcorp said in a statement on Friday. The explorer controlled by billionaire Jeffrey Hildebrand employs about 3,000 people from Texas to Alaska and plans to pro-rate the payouts for anyone who’s been with the company less than six years.

The reward comes just days after shale driller Devon Energy Corp. announced $10,000 bonuses amid a rebound in the industry’s fortunes following devastating back-to-back oil busts and a pandemic-driven collapse in energy demand.

Hilcorp veterans are no strangers to big rewards: employees received $100,000 bonuses in 2015 and a prior incentive program gave them the choice of a new car or cash.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
DeFi Platform BadgerDAO Says Cloudflare Flaw Led to $130 Million Heist

William Turton and Olga Kharif
Fri., December 10, 2021, 

(Bloomberg) -- Decentralized finance platform BadgerDAO said a flaw in the account creation process of the software company Cloudflare Inc. led to the theft of $130 million in cryptocurrencies earlier this month.

BadgerDAO detailed how the hack took place in a blog post on Thursday, saying a phishing attack that occurred on Dec. 2 was a result of “maliciously injected snippet provided” by Cloudflare Workers, a serverless application platform that runs on its cloud network. The post, which was prepared by BadgerDAO and cybersecurity firm Mandiant Corp., said the Cloudflare flaw had been since been remediated.

BadgerDAO hired Mandiant and blockchain forensic analysis firm Chainalysis Inc. to investigate the breach, according to the blog post.

Asked about the claims, Cloudflare said in a statement that its systems “were not compromised” and that “this has not impacted any other customers.”

“Last week, we were made aware that BadgerDAO experienced an incident,” according to Cloudflare. “We have been in touch with the organization and have provided active support to their investigation.” Cloudflare said there is no vulnerability in its Cloudflare Workers product.

BadgerDAO said more than $9 million in stolen funds are recoverable, as they were transferred by the attacker but not yet withdrawn from the company’s vaults, according to the blog post. The hacker’s identity isn’t publicly known.

BadgerDAO didn’t respond to a request for comment. Mandiant and Chainalysis also declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation. In a tweet, Chainalysis said the hackers converted the stolen cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin.

In its blog postings, BadgerDAO said it is considering how it may repay the stolen funds, and that the breach has been reported to law enforcement in the U.S. and Canada.

The theft is just the latest in a string of hacks on decentralized finance platforms, which have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of losses this year. The theft is the fifth largest decentralized finance hack in terms of losses, according to Rekt News, which maintains a “leaderboard” of compromised organizations

“By the end of July 2021, major crypto thefts, hacks and frauds totaled $681 million,” according to an August report published by blockchain forensics company CipherTrace Inc. DeFi crimes continue to grow, and in the second quarter of this year, criminals netted “new highs in DeFi-related proceeds,” according to the report.

In its blog post describing the hack, BadgerDAO provided screen shots of its internal logs, revealing how a hacker allegedly leveraged a flaw in Cloudflare’s product to inject malicious code into the BadgerDAO application. The blog is unusually detailed, as most organizations that suffer hacks reveal little information.

“Badger appreciates our community’s patience while we figure out how to balance our commitment to transparency with the fact that this is still an ongoing investigation with rapidly changing information,” the blog post said.

Though BadgerDAO says the attack occurred on Dec. 2, “the actual compromise may actually date back to Nov. 20,” according to an analysis by TRM Labs, which helps financial institutions and governments fight crytocurrency fraud, money laundering and financial crime. The hacker intercepted several large customer transactions, with one of them netting more than 900 wrapped Bitcoin -- an Ethereum token representing Bitcoin -- or roughly $50 million, TRM said. In total, the hacker appears to have stolen more than 2,000 Bitcoin equivalent and 151 Ethers, the blockchain forensics firm said.

“As the various forms of wrapped Bitcoin were diverted to the hacker’s address, they were converted in real-time to renBTC, a tokenized version of Bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain, then swapped to the Bitcoin blockchain,” TRM said in a recent blog.

JUST LIKE CAPITALI$M
Evergrande’s Hui Forced to Trim Stake in Defaulted Developer

Bloomberg News
Fri., December 10, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- Hui Ka Yan was once China’s second-richest person, worth $42 billion at his peak in 2017.

Now, the China Evergrande Group founder and chairman is scrambling to keep his embattled property developer afloat, including by tapping his own fortune. That took a blow this week, after he was forced to sell pledged shares in his company.

Hui sold 277.8 million shares reducing his stake to 59.78% from 61.88%, filings to the Hong Kong stock exchange showed Friday. No transaction value was given, but the shares were worth HK$498 million ($64 million), based on the average price when they were sold this week, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Hui, who’s now worth $6.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has been pledging stock to raise funds as his property group teeters under the weight of liabilities exceeding $300 billion. He was summoned by the Guangdong government last week, which sent a working group to urge the company to manage risks. Fitch Ratings, meanwhile, cut Evergrande to restricted default on Thursday when it failed to make two coupon payments on time.

The forced sale started on Monday, the first business day after the troubled firm said it planned to work with creditors on a restructuring plan for its offshore debt. It continued for four trading days through Thursday, according to the exchange filings.

“Steps have been taken to enforce a security interest in the shares, or rights to such shares held as security against” Hui, the filings said. They didn’t identify the buyers and it’s unclear whether the sales were part of 500 million shares Hui pledged in October.

Hui sold 1.2 billion shares in late November, his first divestment since Evergrande went public in 2009, while Evergrande has raised money by mortgaging assets and seeking to sell private jets.

“Hui Ka Yan clearly will face more pressure to sell assets,” said Lan Deng, associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. “But the Chinese government also needs to make sure such sales will not impose significant downward pressure on asset prices because so much of the Chinese economy depends on a strong real estate market and rising land and housing values.”

Mercedes-Benz settles Canadian class action on diesel emissions for $243 million

Fri., December 10, 2021


TORONTO — Law firm Koskie Minsky LLP says Daimler AG and North American Mercedes-Benz subsidiaries have agreed to pay $243 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with the owners of 83,000 diesel vehicles in Canada.

The settlement, covering Mercedes-Benz model years between 2009 and 2016, includes the automaker repairing qualifying vehicles to provide cleaner emissions that comply with Canadian standards.

It also includes cash payments of up to $2,925 for those whose cars are repaired as well as other potential payments and a buyback option in some circumstances.

The class action alleged that some Mercedes BlueTEC diesel vehicles weren't compliant with Canadian emission laws and that they emit toxic chemicals at much higher levels at temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius.

Mercedes-Benz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The settlement still has to be approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 9, 2022.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Hedge Funds Face Expansive Short-Selling Probe, Exciting Critics

Katia Porzecanski, Tom Schoenberg and Matt Robinson
Fri., December 10, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Justice Department has launched an expansive criminal investigation into short selling by hedge funds and research firms -- thrilling legions of small investors and other skeptics of the tactics that investigative firms use to bet on stock declines.

The probe, run by the department’s fraud section with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, is digging into the symbiotic relationships between funds and researchers, hunting for signs that they improperly coordinated trades or broke other laws to profit, according to people familiar with the matter.

The government is examining how the investors handle information and set up their bets, especially in the run-up to publication of reports that move stocks. Authorities are looking for signs that money managers sought to engineer startling stock drops or engaged in other abuses, such as insider trading, said two of the people, asking not to be named because the inquiries are confidential.

News of the broad investigation on Friday set off a flurry of celebration across platforms such as Reddit, Stocktwits and Twitter, where small day traders have long railed against what they see as stock manipulation by Wall Street’s establishment. Their complaints set the stage for this year’s surges in so-called meme stocks, and have even won sympathy from members of Congress, who’ve called for more scrutiny of the market.

With that charged backdrop, the Justice Department will have to be careful to zero in on blatant wrongdoing, said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School.

“They do not want to look as if they are criminalizing conduct that was formerly only actionable civilly,” he said. “It would be the traditional pattern of prosecutors, particularly in the first case they bring, to search for a case that has ‘badges of fraud’ -- for example, bribes or clear insider trading.”

Underscoring the inquiry’s sweep, federal investigators are examining trading in at least several dozen stocks, including well-known short targets such as Luckin Coffee Inc., Banc of California Inc., Mallinckrodt Plc and GSX Techedu Inc. And they’re scrutinizing the involvement of about a dozen or more firms -- though it’s not clear which ones, if any, may emerge as targets of the probe. Toronto-based Anson Funds and anonymous researcher Marcus Aurelius Value are among firms involved in the inquiry, the people said. Other prominent firms that circulated research on stocks under scrutiny include Carson Block’s Muddy Waters Capital and Andrew Left’s Citron Research.

The U.S. probe opens yet another front in an already treacherous era for those who try to profit on stock drops. Some bearish funds threw in the towel as government stimulus buoyed prices during the pandemic. That pressure intensified as retail investors organized counterattacks on popular short targets, bidding up shares to inflict losses on hedge funds this year. By late January, Citron vowed to give up short-selling research and focus on long bets.

Meanwhile, companies criticized by short sellers have become increasingly bold in firing back, sometimes launching legal battles even as they face government probes that ultimately support short sellers’ theses. A number of corporate executives have been hoping U.S. authorities might help to further shift the focus to investors’ tactics.

Still, successfully bringing charges against short sellers could be challenging, given that betting against companies and publishing research believed to be accurate is lawful and even beneficial for markets. So far, nobody has been accused of wrongdoing, and authorities may ultimately decide not to pursue charges.

Government attorneys are trying to determine whether short sellers engaged in some form of deception -- say, by misleading the public about their financing of what appears to be independent research, violating confidentiality agreements with authors, or orchestrating stock plunges to panic shareholders and exacerbate selling.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and Muddy Waters declined to comment, and there was no response to messages sent to Anson Funds and Aurelius.

An attorney for Citron said he’s aware of an industry probe but that it’s routine for U.S. investigators to open and close cases. He expressed doubt that their theories would be borne out.

“Citron Capital and Mr. Left are successful because they do quality research and keep their reports secret from other short sellers until publication,” said the lawyer, James Spertus. “There is simply no truth behind any theory that short sellers coordinate amongst themselves before publishing reports, at least in regard to publications by Citron Capital and Andrew Left. I am hopeful that anyone investigating the issue will reach that conclusion as soon as possible.”

Funding Research

Authorities are prying into financial relationships between hedge funds and researchers, according to the people. Such firms are known wide variety of deals, with funds sometimes paying researchers handsome subscription fees for fresh insights into possible corporate trouble, or even becoming an author’s primary source of funding. In one example, prominent financial investigator Harry Markopolos, who normally makes money from whistle-blower awards, said he partnered with a hedge fund to share profits when he released a report on General Electric Co.

Some hedge funds have been known to suggest targets to researchers, who then deliver scathing reports.

One cautionary tale emerged in court after Dallas-based Sabrepoint Capital agreed to pay a short-selling researcher a monthly retainer of $9,500 in 2018. Sabrepoint encouraged him to dig into real estate company Farmland Partners Inc. The researcher, who also wrote publicly under a pseudonym, later published an article on Seeking Alpha, setting off a 39% drop in Farmland’s share price. The company sued and used a judge’s order to force him to reveal his identity: Quinton Mathews.

Mathews later said in a statement that he subsequently learned his article “contained inaccuracies and false allegations” and retracted it. He and Farmland reached a settlement. Sabrepoint has said it didn’t know about the Seeking Alpha article.

Farmland is also on the list of stocks that the Justice Department is examining as it looks at short sellers. Lawyers for Sabrepoint and Mathews declined to comment.

The Justice Department unit handling the inquiry already has a formidable reputation on Wall Street. It recently brought several cases against global banks and traders for illegal spoofing of precious metals and Treasury futures. As part of that probe, JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid more than $900 million in penalties after its traders placed and canceled orders for commodities to benefit positions held by the bank or prized hedge fund clients. Those cases were brought by analyzing trading data for suspicious patterns and then attributing it to individual traders.

While prosecutors in the short-selling investigation issued subpoenas as recently as October, the effort has been underway much longer, the people said.

The inquiry gained momentum after U.S. lawmakers called for more scrutiny of short sellers following the meme-stock trading frenzy that erupted in January. In a single week that month, retail investors sent the price of GameStop Corp. soaring more than 700% before brokerages began limiting bets. Some organizers of the buying spree claimed hedge funds had been unfairly using their market clout to drive down stocks.

Lawmakers have since held multiple hearings on the fracas, at times discussing whether to force short sellers to boost disclosures.

Concerns about how short sellers carry out attacks have arisen repeatedly over the years.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department have gone after hedge funds for running “short and distort” campaigns. The practice typically involves setting up bearish bets, then releasing misleading or inaccurate information about a company to drive down the price before closing out the position for a profit.

But there are also concerns about the impact that earnest research can have when it’s sprung by surprise on the market.

Studies by Columbia University law professor Joshua Mitts have found that short sellers’ reports can briefly induce bouts of panic selling before shares rebound. In those jittery moments -- sometimes mere minutes or hours -- well-positioned short sellers can cash out of trades and pocket significant gains.

Mitts examined more than 1,700 reports made by pseudonymous short sellers from 2010 to 2017, concluding that they contributed to more than $20 billion in dislocated values or temporarily mispriced stocks.

Academics have been encouraging U.S. authorities to address the possibility that short sellers are laying out their cases against stocks, then using the impact of that news to quickly reap gains and quietly move on.

Early last year, Mitts, Coffee and about a dozen other prominent securities-law professors urged the SEC to write rules requiring that short sellers who voluntarily reveal bets against a stock be required to disclose when they’ve exited the position. The professors also asked the regulator to write a new rule that would make closing a short position immediately after disseminating a negative report -- with an intent to do so upon publication -- constitute market manipulation.

Raj Rajaratnam Defends the Actions That Sent Him to Prison

Katherine Burton
Fri., December 10, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Raj Rajaratnam, the mastermind of what prosecutors called one of the largest hedge fund insider-trading rings in U.S. history, maintained his innocence, criticized the rules that convicted him and said he’s back trading stocks.

“The insider-trading laws are murky,” Rajaratnam said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that all the trades questioned at his trial were based on his analysts’ written analysis.

“I did listen to people but I never traded on that,” he said. “We showed that every conversation we had was in the public domain.”

Rajaratnam, 64, was released from federal prison in 2019, after serving almost eight years of an 11-year sentence. He’s now promoting a new book -- “Uneven Justice: The Plot to Sink Galleon” -- set to be released next week.

Rajaratnam, whose Galleon Group LLC once managed more than $7 billion, was convicted in 2011 on 14 counts stemming from a seven-year plot to trade on inside information from corporate executives, bankers, consultants, traders and others.

The Sri Lankan native was perhaps the highest-profile figure ensnared in a years-long crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds.

Arrested in an early-morning FBI raid in October 2009, he was in the first wave of defendants charged by federal prosecutors in New York -- with dozens of other traders, executives and company insiders accused in the years that followed. His sentence was one of the longest.

In a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Rajaratnam was ordered to pay $93 million in civil penalties, while the judge in his criminal case required him to forfeit $54 million and pay $10 million in fines.

Read more: Raj Rajaratnam Gets 11-Year Prison Term for Insider Trading

Then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s legal attack on Wall Street also targeted Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, which pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges in 2013. SAC agreed to pay $1.8 billion and close its investment advisory business. The firm changed its name to Point72 Asset Management. Cohen, who now owns the New York Mets, was never charged.

In addition to proclaiming his innocence, Rajaratnam is once again trading tech stocks, as well as wagering on cryptocurrencies, sports betting, gaming and medical-technology companies, he said. His biggest wager is cybersecurity company Crowdstrike Holdings Inc., he said.

Canada's oil patch leads shareholder payout boom in energy: report

NO INVESTMENT IN GREEN ENERGY OR CCS

INSTEAD THEY BEG FOR TAXPAYERS $$$

Jeff Lagerquist
Fri., December 10, 2021

Companies in Canada’s oil sands put the lowest portion of operating cash into capital spending in Q3, according to a new report. They were also the only group to commit over 15 per cent of total cash outlay towards shareholder returns.More

North American oil and gas producers are swimming in record levels of free cash flow as the price of oil climbs, and companies keep a tight lid on spending due to COVID-19. That "meteoric rise" translated to more rewards for shareholders in the third quarter, according to Evaluate Energy, especially in Canada's oil patch.

A group of 84 Canadian and U.S. producers tracked by the London-based industry data provider raked in a combined US$32.5 billion in operating revenue in the third quarter of this year, the highest level recorded since 2018. At the same time, Evaluate Energy found flat capital spending of around 55 per cent of operating cash flow was a "major factor" keeping producers flush.

Free cash flow - the difference between funds from operations and capital expenditures - reached a record $19.1 billion for the companies tracked in the report. That's more than $8 billion higher than the previous record total from last quarter. It also dwarfs the pre-pandemic average of $1.7 billion between 2018 and Q1 2020, Evaluate Energy said in research released on Thursday.

"Producers have made clear their desire over the past few months to return as much free cash flow as possible to shareholders," senior oil and gas analyst Mark Young wrote in the report. "Should cash flow outpace board or regulatorily-approved plans, the vast majority of producers plan to direct excess cash towards strengthening balance sheets."

The report looked at 35 Canadian oil-weighted producers, including Suncor Energy (SU.TO)(SU), Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO)(CVE), Imperial Oil (IMO.TO)(IMO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO)(CNQ), and MEG Energy (MEG), as well as 18 Canadian gas-weighted producers.

Young found producers in Canada's oil sands put the lowest portion of operating cash into capital spending, dropping below 25 per cent in Q3. They were also the only group to commit over 15 per cent of total cash outlay towards shareholder returns.

Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO)(CPG) is among the Canadian energy names staying true to this trend. The Calgary-based firm said on Monday that it will raise its quarterly dividend and spend up to $100 million on share repurchases over the next six months.

"Given the significant improvement in balance sheet strength, we expect a disproportionate amount of this free cash flow will accrue to shareholders through some combination of dividend increases, special dividends, normal course issuer bids or substantial issuer bids," CIBC analyst Robert Catellier wrote in the bank's 2022 equity outlook released on Tuesday.

Eric Nuttall, senior portfolio manager at Toronto-based Ninepoint Partners, and a staunch advocate of investment in Canada's energy sector, also expects the payouts to continue as oil marches higher and balance sheets grow stronger. He manages the firm's roughly $860 million Canada-focused energy fund.

"It's only going to get better, not only as the oil price goes up, but as balance sheets get paid down more and more and more," he said at a recent virtual event. "I want 50 per cent of your free cash flow for my unit holders. We've been through a tough time. [For] seven years, they've been the worst bear market in history. They need to get paid."

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.

THIRD WORLD USA

Thousands in Oregon face eviction as lawmakers scramble

Fri., December 10, 2021



PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Inside Musonda Mwango’s Portland apartment are details of his life that have transformed the property into a home. His guitars hang in the corner where he composes music, Christmas decorations adorn the walls, and pictures of his three children — who live with him — are proudly displayed.

But as days tick by and bills stack up, Mwango is part of the growing number of households at risk of eviction in Oregon, even as he awaits aid from the state.

“We are going into winter, and in a period of celebration," the 36-year-old father said in late November. “And yet, you also have this thing at the back of your mind that this place, that we call home, might not actually be our home much longer.”

In Oregon, where a longstanding housing crisis has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, tenants on the brink of eviction are losing the safety nets that kept them housed. Despite an overwhelming need, the statewide rental assistance program stopped taking new applications after all federal funds have been requested and committed to renters.

Oregon has a higher rate of people experiencing homelessness than nearly every other state in America. A 2020 federal review found that 35 people in Oregon are experiencing homelessness per 10,000. Only three states had a higher rate: New York (47 people per 10,000), Hawaii (46 people per 10,000) and California (41 people per 10,000).

Now, an estimated 8,355 households are are at risk of eviction, as protections keeping them housed have expired after they waited for rental assistance for more than two months. More than 22,000 households are still waiting to be considered for help.

The need for help continues to grow, especially as many tenants struggle to pay months of back rent. And now — as more than 67,000 Oregon households report that they feel “not at all confident” they can cover next month’s bills, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau survey — lawmakers will be scrambling for solutions during a special session that begins Monday.

Due to the immense backlog of rental assistance applications, Gov. Kate Brown signed a law in June that grants renters a 60-day period in which they cannot be evicted due to lack of payments, as long as they provide proof that they applied for aid.

Following the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium, other states have implemented similar eviction limitations. In Connecticut and Virginia, a landlord must file for federal rental assistance before removing a tenant. In Michigan, the eviction process is paused while an application for aid is pending. In New Jersey and New York most renters can’t be evicted until January.

Mwango applied for rental assistance in July and was approved in August. As of the end of November, Mwango still had yet to receive aid from the state. He is now past the protection period and, under state law, can be evicted.

“We get calls from people every day who are in this situation,” said Sybil Hebb, the director of Legislative Advocacy for the Oregon Law Center. “The overwhelming word I would use to describe those calls is just pervasive desperation and fear."

Since July, Hebb said there have been more than 2,200 eviction proceedings filed in Oregon for non-payment. From 1,000 to 3,000 new rental assistance applications are submitted each week.

“If we let families down we are going to be pushing people into the real threat of homelessness. It’s unconscionable not to take steps to prevent that,” Hebb said.

Officials say a significant number of people are applying for state aid to pay back rent that has accumulated since the pandemic, as well as growing late fee charges.

“Even if someone has started a new job and they’re now employed … they may still have thousands of dollars of back rent that are owed,” said Margaret Salazar, the director of Oregon Housing and Community Services.

Of the $289 million of federal rental assistance funds in Oregon, $119 million has yet to reach renters. Despite this, in November the Oregon Housing and Community Services announced nearly all the federal funds allocated to the state had been requested — as a result the state agency stopped accepting applications in December.

Halting applications also eliminates the protection period for people who apply for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program after Dec. 1, though they can still apply through local community programs. However, not every Oregon county or city has rental aid available.

“It is clear from the ongoing intake of applications and the demand that’s been demonstrated that Oregon needs additional rental assistance,” Salazar said.

Texas and New York have also committed all of their money or indicated that funds will be exhausted soon.

State officials in Oregon have asked for $198 million in additional money from the U.S. Treasury, but it's unclear whether the state will get it. The Treasury is expected to begin reallocating money from places that have not spent it.

Following mounting calls from advocates and lawmakers, Brown announced the Legislature will return for a special session to address eviction protections.

State Sen. Kayse Jama, who is leading a legislative housing committee, says there are three solutions that “need to happen at the same time” to keep Oregonians housed — additional funding for the rental assistance program, extending the 60-day eviction safe harbor and speeding up rental assistance processing.

On Friday, Brown announced a package of bills for Monday’s special session, which includes $215 million to prevent winter evictions and transition to long-term, locally-delivered eviction prevention services. Out of the proposed funds, $100 million would be allocated for emergency rental assistance. In addition there is a proposal to extend the current 60-day eviction protection period — allowing protections to remain in place for a tenant until their application has been processed.

“This is not a crisis of numbers, it is a crisis of people,” Mwango said. “People that are actually trying to get ahead and who have been derailed by the pandemic – not by fault of their own and not because they are lazy.”

___

Cline is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Sara Cline, The Associated Press

Factbox: A global look at abortion and some of the world's toughest laws

Fri., December 10, 2021

USA


PRO ABORTION MARCH POLAND


(Reuters) - New limits on abortion rights are being pursued in the United States and other countries.

Here is a look at global abortion statistics and some of the world's strictest abortion laws based on information from the U.N. World Health Organization as well as from the Guttmacher Institute research group and the Center for Reproductive Rights legal advocacy group, both of which support abortion rights.

- Approximately 73 million abortions occur worldwide annually, with 61% of all unintended pregnancies and 29% of all pregnancies ending in abortion, according to the World Health Organization. It said about 45% of all abortions are unsafe, of which 97% occur in developing countries. A WHO fact sheet said, "Unsafe abortion is a leading - but preventable - cause of maternal deaths and morbidities."

- There are about two dozen countries where abortion is prohibited altogether, a list that includes Egypt, Iraq, the Philippines, Laos, Senegal, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to the Guttmacher Institute. About three dozen other countries allow it only to save the life of the mother, a list that includes Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Ireland, Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Around 40% of women of reproductive age live in places where abortion access is illegal or limited.

- In the United States, a series of restrictive Republican-backed laws have been passed at the state level, with the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court considering overturning a 1973 precedent that legalized the procedure nationwide in a case involving a Mississippi abortion ban - blocked by lower courts - beginning at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court on Friday allowed a legal challenge brought by abortion providers to proceed against a Texas law that went into effect in September that bans the procedure at about six weeks of pregnancy.

- Poland in January put into effect a constitutional court decision prohibiting abortions performed due to fetal defects, banning the most common of the few legal grounds for terminating a pregnancy in the largely Catholic country.

- El Salvador has some of the world's strictest abortion laws, with the procedure banned without exception since 1998. More than 180 women who experienced obstetric emergencies were prosecuted for abortion or aggravated homicide in the past 20 years.

- Women in Malta are denied access to abortion, even if their lives are at risk. It is the only EU member state that completely prohibits the procedure. Women face up to three years in jail.

- Senegal prohibits abortion but its code of medical ethics allows it if three doctors agree it is needed to save a woman's life. A 2014 study showed the rules force women to seek clandestine abortions and, as a last resort, kill their own infants.

- In the United Arab Emirates, abortion is illegal except if the pregnancy endangers the woman's life or there is evidence the baby will not survive. Women could face up to one year in prison and a hefty fine. Women who seek hospital treatment for a miscarriage may be accused of attempted abortion.

- Anti-abortion laws in the Philippines derive from its time as a colony of Spain. Abortion has been prohibited for more than a century. About 1,000 Filipino women die each year from complications. Spain is among more than 50 countries that have liberalized abortion laws over the past quarter century.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)