Earlier this month, Governor Bill Richardson decided to withdraw his nomination for commerce secretary in order to, in his explanation, avoid making a spectacle out of the confirmation process. The unnecessary distraction, he feared, would come about

Cadbury products will no longer be sold by India’s largest retailer, Future Group, as Future’s chief executive Kishore Biyani has accused the nation’s largest chocolate manufacturer of price discrimination. He has accused Cadbury of cutting

A British businessman and two Ikea managers pleaded guilty on Sept. 7 to charges dealing with bribery. Adam David Hauxwell-Smith, owner of Godfrey and Warner Ltd, a company that sold items such as potpourri, candles and picture frames to Ikea, admitted to giving £648,000 to John Brown, a purchaser for Ikea, and £243,437 to [...]

In hopes of setting the standard in its industry, banking powerhouse Barclays recently began a new trend in corporate responsibility. This will include screening £1.5 billion in supplier expenditures.
The company introduced a “corporate responsibility supplier questionnaire” last year with a goal of ensuring that Barclays “engages with the right suppliers and that they have [...]

Houston oilfield services company, Nabors Industries, became the latest oilfield services firm to launch an internal review in response to a federal investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
In a filing with the SEC, Nabors said, “We are reviewing certain transactions with this vendor, which provides freight forwarding and customs clearance [...]

Fisher-Price has announced a recall of nearly one million Chinese-made toys over concerns of lead-based paint.
The worldwide recall affects 967,000 Nickelodeon and Sesame Street toys, including such popular items the Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was [...]

Home Depot confirmed yesterday that it terminated four purchasing managers nearly two weeks ago for allegedly taking over $1 million in kickbacks from suppliers.
Reportedly, the three lower-level managers were taking large bribes from flooring vendors out of Asia in return for featuring these vendors’ products in Home Depot stores.
Home Depot is cooperating with law [...]

As reported in the Dallas Business Journal, a group of dairy farmers has filed a series of lawsuits against Dean Foods and several other companies, including Dairy Farmers of America and National Dairy Holdings, accusing them of illegal price fixing and monopolization. The lawsuit says that, as early as 2001, Dean and [...]

According to media reports, the Coca-Cola Co. has filed a criminal complaint against executives of French food and drink maker Danone, as well as its PR firm Euro RSCG. In this complaint, the company accuses them of orchestrating a smear campaign against Coke’s Dasani water brand in the Argentinian market – a violation of [...]

French company Carrefour SA, the second-largest retailer in the world behind Wal-Mart, has been fined $2.7 million by a French regional court for:

below-cost selling in certain situations;
illegal collusion with suppliers;
advertising prices on products which were later not sold at that price in the stores;
promoting products with special prices, but not having sufficient quantities of the [...]

As reported in the UK’s Guardian and BBC News, global cosmetics giant L’Oréal and its outside employment services firm Adecco were found guilty last week of racial discrimination after they sought to exclude non-white women from promoting a line of shampoo.
The French campaign group SOS Racisme brought the case against the Garnier division of [...]

Actually the proper term from the nuclear cold war drill of the 1950s is “duck, cover and roll.” However, the “roll” part seems inappropriate today as Online Tire Review (yes, there really is such a website – www.tirereview.com) broke the news yesterday that Foreign Tire Sales (FTS), the New Jersey importer at the center [...]

A former Richmond grocer who was once hailed as the nation’s most successful minority grocer was awarded $16 million by a jury from a lawsuit in which he accused grocery giant Supervalu of forcing him out of business. Jonathan F. “Johnny” Johnson’s suit claimed that Supervalu defrauded him by singling him out, then extending high-interest [...]

What compels a person to commit a fraud worth $800 million? Mark Kaiser, former Chief Marketing Director for U.S. Foodservice, insisted to a federal judge that in his own case, it wasn’t “fueled or driven by greed.” U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa disagreed – he sentenced Kaiser to seven years in prison for [...]

Quiz: How many liters of water does it take to produce a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola?
Answer: 5.08
In response to criticism that the company contributes to water shortages in the emerging markets in which is operates, Coca-Cola announced a set of water-recycling and environmental initiatives with the goal of becoming “water neutral”.
According to [...]

Marks & Spencer has made quite a splash in announcing a detailed plan to do business “more ethically”. M & S’s announcement was met with a flurry of press, including a thorough piece from the BBC.
At the core is a 100-point five-year plan to re-engineer itself to become a carbon neutral, zero-waste-to-landfill, ethical-trading, [...]

In the “should have seen that coming category” of news, Burger King grabbed the mantle of ethical leadership in the fast-food industry and ran off with it. The company announced a series of food supply chain initiatives that could appeal to its customers, including:
- increasing purchasing of eggs produced by free range chickens, with a [...]

Maximino Garcia, president of a company that employed hundreds of illegal immigrants in Wilmington, Ohio, was sentenced to fifteen months in jail and ordered to forfeit $12 million in gains yesterday by U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel.  According to prosecutors, through his company (Garcia Labor Company Inc.), Mr. Garcia had more than 900 illegal immigrants using invalid Social [...]