Legal
November 11, 2020 at 4:26 pm
This week, European Union regulators brought antitrust charges against Amazon.com, The New York Times reported. The EU claims that the e-commerce giant broke competition laws by wrongfully using its size and access to data against smaller sellers that rely on the company to reach consumers. Specifically, Amazon is accused of collecting nonpublic data from sellers…
November 4, 2020 at 9:23 pm
On Monday, a New York federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Amazon.com that accused the company of failing to stop the spread of the coronavirus through unsafe working conditions, CNBC reported. The judge deferred to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The complaint against the e-commerce giant was filed by four employees at Amazon's Staten Island,…
October 21, 2020 at 9:38 am
Many retailers were forced to close their doors to customers beginning in March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic first hit the United States. This caused the stock market to plunge initially, and pushed the overall economy into a record slump. Unsure of how to proceed given the unprecedented situation where municipalities were ordering stores to…
September 10, 2020 at 11:14 am
J.C. Penney reached an agreement yesterday to sell its retail business to mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners, averting a total liquidation. Simon and Brookfield will pay about $300 million in cash and assume $500 million in debt to buy J.C. Penney, lawyers for the retailer said at a Bankruptcy Court hearing. The deal…
September 9, 2020 at 4:26 pm
Luxury goods giant LVMH is scrapping its $16.2 billion acquisition of Tiffany & Co., CNBC reported. The acquisition would have been the biggest deal ever in the luxury industry. The merger agreement was signed last November and had a closing deadline of no later than Nov. 20, 2020. However, Tiffany requested an extension until Dec. 31,…
August 31, 2020 at 6:04 pm
The e-commerce business and intellectual property of omnichannel specialty retailer RTW Retailwinds were sold at bankruptcy auction last week to investment firm Saadia Group for $40 million plus assumption of certain liabilities, including honoring gift cards. Assets include websites run by the apparel company, which was previously known as New York & Co. Those sites include www.nyandcompany.com,…
August 18, 2020 at 2:22 pm
A partnership of the biggest U.S. mall owner, Simon Property Group, and apparel licensing firm Authentic Brands Group (ABG) has been tapped by a bankruptcy court as the winning bidder to acquire denim maker Lucky Brand for $140.1 million, reports CNBC. The two — in a venture known as Sparc — announced last week that they're set to assume the…
August 13, 2020 at 4:06 pm
Discount retailer Stein Mart has filed for bankruptcy and plans to close its nearly 300 stores. The 112-year-old company blamed its failure on changing consumer habits and the pandemic, both of which "have caused significant financial distress on our business," Stein Mart CEO Hunt Hawkins said in a release on Wednesday. Like other retailers, Stein Mart's operations were…
July 29, 2020 at 3:31 pm
Sycamore Partners, the private equity firm that recently backed out of a deal to buy Victoria’s Secret, has a good chance of winning an auction to buy the department store chain J.C. Penney out of bankruptcy, MarketWatch reported. The New York-based firm bid $1.75 billion for the department store chain. If it wins the auction,…
July 28, 2020 at 11:00 am
On March 2, 2020, a bipartisan group of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce Act (the Shop Safe Act 2020) to help stem the growing concern over counterfeit products being offered for sale on online third-party marketplace e-commerce platforms. E-commerce has…
