In an effort to gain approval for their $6.3 billion proposed marriage to Staples, Office Depot announced last month it would close about 400 stores. While that move could certainly help the merger process, it appears that federal regulators are less worried about retail sales at physical stores, and more concerned about their contracts to provide supplies to large corporations and businesses. [More]
Government Policy
Antitrust Concerns For Staples, Office Depot Merger Now Center On Corporate Supply Contracts
By 9.10.15
Supplement-Maker Who Diluted Products With Other Powders Sentenced To 40 Months In Prison
By 9.9.15
When you buy a food product or a dietary supplement, you should be confident that the product’s ingredients are listed on the label, and that you’re getting what you paid for. Federal prosecutors say that one dietary supplement wholesaler in New Jersey spent four years selling products diluted with products like maltodextrin or rice flour, increasing profits but defrauding customers. The company’s owner now must forfeit $1 million in profits and has been sentenced to 40 months in prison and one year of supervised release. [More]
Regulators Holding Yet Another Takata Airbag Meeting, Could Finally Coordinate The Messy Recall
By 9.9.15
Back in June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was considering options to speed up replacement of defective shrapnel-shooting Takata-produced airbags linked to eight deaths and hundreds of injuries. Today, the agency announced it will hold yet another public meeting next month, a move that signals the agency’s latest step in taking control of the massive recall effort. [More]
The Country’s Two Largest Debt Buyers Must Refund Consumers $61M Over Illegal Collection Practices
By 9.9.15
Encore Capital Group and Portfolio Recovery Associates are two of the biggest names in the debt-buying game, and according to federal regulators they have often used deceptive and harmful tactics to collect their newly acquired debts. Now, as a result of these actions, the companies must refund consumers $61 million and pay $18 million in penalties. [More]
IKEA Recalls SPELEVINK Crib Mattresses For A Second Time: Now It’s Flammability
By 9.8.15
If you happen to own IKEA’s VYSSA SPELEVINK crib mattress, that means you’ve already missed two recalls of your kid’s mattress. Those were for potential entrapment: it was possible for the mattress to shift so that a child could become trapped between the mattress and crib frame. Now the Consumer Products Safety Commission reports another risk of this product: flammability. [More]
Lawmakers Call On USDA To Reduce Farmers’ Reliance On Antibiotics In Chickens
By 9.8.15
Following a 17-month outbreak of salmonella poisoning that sickened at least 600 people around the country, a Dept. of Agriculture advisory committee will meet tomorrow discuss strategies for effectively controlling the spread of salmonella in poultry. In advance of that meeting, two members of Congress are calling on the USDA to take a three-pronged approach to fighting drug-resistant bacteria. [More]
Salmonella Outbreak Potentially Linked To Andrew & Williamson Cucumbers
By 9.8.15
Eating more fresh vegetables is supposed to be good for your health, but that turned out to be bad advice for the hundreds of people who have become sick from eating contaminated cucumbers distributed to numerous grocery stores and restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. So far, 53 victims have been hospitalized, and one person has died. [More]
Proposed Keyless Ignition Alert Rule May Have Prevented Carbon Monoxide Deaths
By 9.8.15
A recently filed lawsuit alleges that 10 automakers concealed the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in more than five million vehicles with keyless ignitions, resulting in 13 deaths. Meanwhile, a federal regulator’s four-year-old proposal for an alert that could have saved some lives continues to go unimplemented. [More]
New Policy Means AutoNation Won’t Sell Vehicles With Open Safety Recalls
By 9.8.15
Although there is no specific federal law prohibiting used car dealers to sell recalled vehicles, nearly a year ago AutoNation – one of the nation’s largest pre-owned vehicle dealers – suspended the sale of cars with potentially deadly Takata airbag defects. Now, the company plans to take things a bit further, announcing it will no longer sell any vehicle that has an open safety recall. [More]
U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Sues FCC To Stop Efforts To Block Obnoxious Robocalls
By 9.4.15
Consumers hate getting endless robocalls on their landlines and cell phones, and with good reason: they’re incredibly annoying. But they exist for a reason, too: legitimate businesses and scammers alike both find that, to some degree, they work. So when the FCC proposes a rule to let consumers cut back on the annoyance in their lives, businesses are not necessarily thrilled. [More]
Corinthian Students Continue To Wait For Debt Relief As Department Of Ed. Reviews More Than 7,800 Claims
By 9.4.15
The tens of thousands of students seeking debt relief from the federal government after for-profit education chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. closed its Everest University, WyoTech and Heald College campuses, will have to wait a little longer, the Department of Education said Thursday as it provided an update on the number of federal student loans it has discharged and that are currently under consideration. [More]
Kraft Adds 335K More Cases Of Cheese Singles To Recall Over Packaging Choking Hazard
By 9.4.15
After recalling 36,000 cases of Kraft Singles out of concern that consumers could choke on parts of the film covering individual slices, Kraft Heinz has expanded the recall to include 335,000 more cases of cheese for the same packaging reason. [More]
Waze Accused Of Stealing Map Data From Competing Traffic App
By 9.3.15
How do you catch someone who you think is stealing your map data? Just put locations on the map that don’t exist, and then look for those locations to show up on the alleged thief’s maps. That’s what traffic-alerting app PhantomAlert did when it believed that competitor Waze was stealing its location database. Now PhantomAlert is suing Waze, which has since been purchased by Google. [More]
Soft Drink Companies Fund Fitness Programs, Ungrateful Governments Campaign Against Soda Anyway
By 9.3.15
Soft drink companies have an important message to get across to the public: their products can be part of a healthy lifestyle when used occasionally, and when you burn off that Mountain Dew with regular exercise. They’ve even been nice enough to fund fitness programs in many cities, and those ungrateful cities respond by proposing taxes and warning labels for their products. [More]
North Carolina City Is First To Offer Internet Service That’s 10 Times Faster Than Google Fiber
By 9.3.15
While Google is in the process of deploying high-speed gigabit Internet service in North Carolina’s major metro areas of Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, the folks in the much smaller city of Salisbury, NC, are being offered access to broadband that’s several times faster. [More]
90,000 Pounds Of Johnsonville Grillers Recalled Because Pieces Of Metal In Your Pork Can Ruin The Barbecue
By 9.3.15
If your Labor Day plans included throwing a few pre-made pork burgers on the grill you might want to check your brand of choice. That’s because, just in time for the holiday weekend, Johnsonville announced a recall of pork patties that may contain decidedly untasty metal fragments. [More]
Fox News Anchor Sues Hasbro Over Toy Hamster With Her Name
By 9.2.15 — Updated: 10.6.16
Harris Faulkner, an anchor on the Fox News cable network, is a human and has been on TV for decades. Yet the toy company Hasbro sells a tiny plastic hamster as part of its Littlest Pet Shop line which is named Harris Faulkner. How did the hamster get its name? Is it intended to insult or honor Ms. Faulkner, or just a very strange coincidence? She has sued the company for $5 million, either way. [More]
Company That Paid YouTube Users To Promote Xbox One Settles Charges Of Deceptive Advertising
By 9.2.15
When Microsoft teamed up with Machinima to launch a promotion that paid affiliated YouTubers for shilling for the Xbox One console in January 2014, we questioned whether any potential negative publicity and regulatory hassle would be worth it. Turns out, we were right to think the company would face scrutiny from federal regulators, as the Federal Trade Commission says it has cleared Microsoft of wrongdoing and settled charges that Machinima pushed videos of people endorsing the video game without disclosing they had been paid. [More]
