Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit claiming that Zuck & Co.’s use of facial recognition technology violated Illinois’ biometric privacy law. Though the settlement is little more than “a...more
Massachusetts has fined Chipotle $1.4 million as part of a settlement with the restaurant chain over accusations that “it routinely violated [state] labor laws, with authorities estimating more than 13,000 violations from...more
Oil jumped for a second straight day, with futures near $70/barrel as fallout from the U.S.’s drone-strike assassination of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani continues to raise “the prospect of disruptions in the world’s most important...more
Fiat Chrysler and rival Peugeot have agreed to binding merger terms that, if approved by US and European regulators, would create a “$50 billion auto giant that would rank among the world’s largest car companies by sales”....more
More than a bit of drama in the auto world yesterday, with General Motors suing rival Fiat Chrysler, accusing it of “bribing United Auto Workers officials to gain competitive advantages in contract negotiations.” The UAW’s...more
Jobs Report Friday again. Here’s what we’re watching, including the possibility of scary low numbers thanks to the only-recently-resolved GM strike....more
Fiat Chrysler and France’s Peugeot are in the midst of merger talks that, if finalized, could “create a nearly $50 billion trans-Atlantic auto giant.” One option being bandied about in the “fluid” talks is an “all-share...more
The SEC will vote today on what it’s calling Regulation Best Interest, “which says brokers can’t put their own paychecks ahead of a customer’s needs”—the more-industry-acceptable revision of an Obama-era fiduciary duty rule...more
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee wrapped its March meetings yesterday with Chair Powell highlighting the central bank’s “fairly downbeat economic assessment” and the expectation that it will keep rates steady for...more
Once again, it’s Jobs Report Friday. Here’s some things to keep in mind as you review the numbers...more
The Fed will wrap up its Open Markets Committee meeting today, and the recent dive on Wall Street has rather suddenly brought a bit of drama to what was a long-promised rate hike. Here’s a bit of background on what it’s been...more
In order to comply with European antitrust rulings against it earlier this year, Google announced that for the first time it will begin charging telephone handset manufacturers to install Gmail, Google Maps, and other popular...more
Coke is buying British coffee-shop chain Costa for $5.1 billion, as the coffee wars just keep on chugging. Costa has 3800 stores in 32 countries and “a foothold in China,” making Coke an instant player in the field....more
This deeper dive into the White House’s proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods helps us understand just exactly how buying for the average American could change....more
Google is facing a federal lawsuit in San Francisco over last week’s AP investigation that showed that the search giant “was sill tracking iPhone and Android device users, even if they turned off the ‘Location History’...more
The DOJ vs. the AT&T/Time Warner deal. The much-anticipated ruling’s finally in, and . . . the merger’s a go. Repeat, the merger’s a go....more
Deutsche Bank—in keeping with its post-Cryan plans to shrink its US footprint—has been considering plans “in recent weeks to eliminate close to 10,000 jobs.” [It’s now looking like 7,000.] ...more
The latest on the potential Disney move for “significant parts of 21st Century Fox,” which is nearing completion and could see Murdoch scion leaving his father and brother in order to work for Big Mouse....more
It’s been far from a smooth ride for Uber over the past few weeks. And Friday’s revelation that the ride-sharing company’s been using a tool called “Greyball” to mine and use app data to “deceive the authorities in markets...more
Activist investor Carl Icahn has taken a sizeable stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb, a move that reportedly caught execs at the drugmaker unawares and sets the stage for a potential sale....more
The CFPB has ordered UniRush (purveyor of the RushCard prepaid debit card) and its payment processor, MasterCard, to fork over $13 million in fines after a breakdown last year that blocked thousands of customers from...more
The emissions cheating scandal that recently cost VW $4.3 billion and a mess of criminal indictments isn’t, it seems, confined to the Germans. We heard months ago about a similar probe into Mitsubishi, and yesterday we...more
The Carlyle Group is staring down the barrel of a $1 billion civil lawsuit by the failed Carlyle Capital Corp.’s liquidators over the 2008 collapse of the mortgage-bond fund. The trial’s taking place in Guernsey, a British...more
Bayer’s making good on its rumored interest in Monsanto in a deal that could be valued at more than $42 billion and would bring together two of the world’s biggest suppliers of crop seeds and pesticides...more
In February the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice announced entry of a consent order with Toyota Motor Credit, the U.S. financing arm of Toyota Motors’ subsidiary Toyota Financial Services. The...more