MACY’S SETTLEMENT FOR SHOPPER-PROFILING $650,000

Have you ever had a similar shopping trip?

 

 

  

Macy’s has agreed to pay a settlement of $650,000 to settle the accusations of racial profiling in their Manhattan’s Herald Square branch. The company also agreed to new policies allowing police access to its security camera footage, and to investigate customer complaints, report for 3 years on compliance of these issues, and keep better records of any issues that may arise.

 

There was documentation of 18 African-American, Latino and other ethnic minorities in February 2013 stating that between 2007-2013 they had been apprehended and detained at the store even though they hadn’t attempted to steal anything.

 

Whistleblower Shares Crucial Information About How The VA Really Operates It's HEALTHCARE PROGRAMS!!



Federal investigators are investigating a whistleblower's claims that applications for veterans seeking health care benefits may have been improperly purged from the VA's Health Eligibility Center in suburban Atlanta.

Eligibility Center program specialist Scott Davis tells of the health benefit applications for more than 10,000 veterans may have been improperly purged from the Health Eligibility Center's national data system in DeKalb County.

 

Davis began filing complaints in January and said managers were focused on meeting goals linked to the Affordable Care Act to meet their bonus targets. He also asked the VA office of the Inspector General to investigate potential fraud involving government contracts.

All this comes after they have already gotten a slap on the hand for falsifying appointment documentation in several facilities. Who else thinks it's time for an overhaul on this group?



$190 Million John Hopkins Settlement For Pelvic Exam Lawsuits



Johns Hopkins Hospital has agreed to pay $190 million to settle a class action filed by about 3800 women who were secretly videotaped during gynecological examinations by a doctor, Nikita Levy, who was a staff member at the hospital. The preliminary settlement, approved by Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Sylverster Cox is believed to be the largest settlement of this sort.

Nikita Levy killed himself in Feb. 2013, two weeks after an employee of the hospital told higher-ups at Johns Hopkins about a penlike device Dr. Levy wore around his neck during patient examinations that she believed to be a camera. While Johns Hopkins did not admit to wrongdoing, it did say in a statement it believes the settlement is “fair and properly balances the concerns of thousands of Plaintiffs with the obligations the health system has to provide ongoing and superior care to the community.”

After receiving the insider tip, Johns Hopkins Hospital security searched Dr. Levy’s office and uncovered several of the penlike devices. Baltimore County police also stormed his home with search warrants and uncovered multiple data storage servers suspected of housing explicit depictions of his patients. The class action suit filed last fall alleged that the institution failed to “discover, stop and report” Dr. Levy because its staff was not trained to recognize and report perverse conduct and patients were not offered the option of having a chaperone present during examinations and procedures. It was also alleged that the institution failed to investigate properly reports of misconduct.



GM Faulty Ignition Switch Kills 63 So Far!

There have also been 65 injuries reported in addition to the death statistics.

GM earlier this year recalled 2.6 million cars for the faulty ignition switches, which can cause engine stalls and stop power steering and power brakes from operating and air bags from deploying. It has also admitted not fixing the problem for a decade.

The number of death claims represents nearly five times the 13 deaths that GM has attributed to the defective switches.





The payouts from the compensation fund for eligible claims are expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2015 and the families for those who died would likely be awarded at least $1 million each.

While this is a nice gesture I am sure all of those families affected would much rather have had GM to fix the error when discovered so they could have their family member with them yet today!

 

$62.5 million settlement approved in Wells Fargo securities lending case



 



 

 

 

 

 

Final approval was given Monday to a $62.5 million settlement between Wells Fargo and clients who lost money in a complicated investment program known as securities lending. As part of the settlement, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank awarded attorneys representing those clients nearly $23 million in fees and expenses. 

 

The agreement is the third of five lawsuits to be resolved involving Wells Fargo and its investment program. In 2012, a jury in Ramsey County awarded $57 million to several charitable organizations. Last year, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. prevailed in a jury trial in federal court.

Plaintiffs in the cases, including the one that settled Monday, claimed that Wells Fargo lost money for its clients by allegedly investing in complicated and risky ventures with collateral from securities owned by the clients that were loaned to brokers. 

 

The settlement approved Monday was a class-action lawsuit involving 92 members. The lead clients were a public employee pension fund for the city of Farmington Hills, Mich., and the pension fund for a carpenters’ union in Arizona.

Goldman Sachs in settlement worth $1.2B to resolve US claims over mortgage securities



Goldman Sachs has agreed to a settlement worth $1.2 billion to resolve claims that it misled U.S. mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about risky mortgage securities it sold them before the housing market collapsed in 2007.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, announced the settlement Friday with the Wall Street powerhouse. New York-based Goldman Sachs sold the securities to the companies between 2005 and 2007. Under the settlement, Goldman is paying $3.15 billion to buy back the securities from Fannie and Freddie. The FHFA said the settlement was worth $1.2 billion because of the difference between what Goldman is paying and the current value of the securities. That means Goldman is paying a $1.2 billion penalty. Goldman will pay about $1 billion to Fannie and $2.15 billion to Freddie for the securities it sold.

The settlement is the latest federal government agreement over actions related to the financial crisis that struck in 2008. The crisis, triggered by vast sales of risky mortgage securities, plunged the economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

Goldman agreed to pay $550 million  in 2010 to settle the SEC's charges, the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in the agency's history.

JP Morgan Fair Settlement? Was It Still Worth It to Them? Did They Still Make a Profit?

(CNN) -- If the reports of a proposed $13 billion settlement between the Justice Department and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are correct, the public and the company's shareholders will not see justice done.

 

While the tentative deal is being portrayed as a larger settlement, it really represents the company coming forward with an additional $9 billion. The other $4 billion represents loan workouts that JPMorgan would do anyway to reduce its losses on mortgages that would otherwise cause it greater losses through foreclosure.

 

From the perspective of the company's shareholders, the problems amount to an even bigger loss because of alleged fraud. The full $13 billion would represent a loss to the shareholders, and JPMorgan estimates its future increased legal and investigative costs for its past scandals at $9.2 billion.

 

 A settlement of this kind would release JPMorgan and its officers from civil and criminal liability for a wide range of alleged frauds. Many of these alleged frauds added to the profits of JPMorgan and the companies it acquired. The shareholders should not be enriched by fraud, and the perpetrators should be held accountable for their individual actions, not just the company as a whole.