2014

Lawsuit in Child Deaths Goes to the Heart of Long SC DSS Controversy

Twenty months ago, when news of the five slain Jones children first stunned South Carolina and the nation, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen slammed Gov. Nikki Haley and the S.C. Department of Social Services for not doing more to protect the Jones children. Haley, who had earlier in 2014 praised the then-DSS director Lillian Keller as being a “rock star,” slammed Sheheen for playing politics.


Accounting Class-Action Filings Rose Again in 2015

A new report from Cornerstone Research indicates that securities class-action filings with accounting allegations rose for the third consecutive year. According to Accounting Class Action Filings and Settlements – 2015 Review and Analysis, the 71 filings last year exceeded the average over the past decade of 67 filings. There were 69 accounting-related case filings in 2014.



Tentative Proposal in Children’s Lawsuit for Right to Lawyer in Deportation Cases

A federal judge in Seattle has a tentative proposal to set who can join a class action lawsuit in a battle over whether undocumented immigrant children have a right to a lawyer in deportation hearings. U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly issued a court order this week that tentatively proposes that the class action suit includes children under 18 who are in deportation proceedings in the U.S.…


Uber Settles California Background Check Suit for Up to $25 Million

Uber will pay the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles up to $25 million as part of a lawsuit that accused the startup of misrepresenting its background checks. In 2014, district attorneys brought the suit against Uber for not vetting its drivers thoroughly while claiming its background checks were the “gold standard” in the industry. The cities said Uber’s system was actually not as …


Sony Hack Class Action Settlement Gets Final Approval

A year and a half after Sony Pictures was devastated in a massive hack that saw thousands of employees’ personal information ending up exposed online, the class action lawsuit against the studio has come to an end — though legal action from the hack itself hasn’t. Today in a sometimes contentious hearing in federal court in downtown Los Angeles, a multimillion-dollar settlement stemming from …


Barrick Chairman John Thornton Takes $10-Million Cut in Pay

John Thornton has finally addressed the recurring outcry over his compensation – by taking a nearly $10-million (U.S.) cut in pay. The executive chairman of Barrick Gold Corp. will receive $3.1-million for his work in 2015, a dramatic reduction from the $12.9-million he pocketed for 2014. Shareholders have twice voted against Mr. Thornton’s compensation package in recent years through non- …


Did Hortonworks CEO Take One for the Team?

When Hortonworks CEO Rob Bearden took questions from analysts during the company’s earnings call on Feb. 10, Barclays managing director Raimo Lenschow put him on the spot. Lenschow wanted to know what Hortonworks — the provider of big data crunching Apache Open Source Hadoop — was going to do to stop employee attrition, given how far the value of their stock options had fallen. “Have you …


After False Start, New GM Ignition Switch Trial Set to Start

NEW YORK (AP) — Weeks after the first New York trial over General Motors’ faulty ignition switch controversy ended prematurely, a new one is set to start. The Manhattan federal court trial that begins on Monday is meant to define legal boundaries that may aid the settlement of hundreds of lawsuits filed after GM revealed that it had continued to sell flawed cars after discovering an ignition …


Home Depot Offers $19M to Settle Customers’ Hacking Lawsuit

Home Depot offers $19M to settle customers’ hacking lawsuit The 2014 hack of the home-improvement retailer’s payment systems exposed more than 50 million credit card accounts. More than 50 million Home Depot customers’ credit cards were exposed to theft in a massive hack in 2014. Home Depot says it’s willing to pay as much as $19.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by shoppers …