‘How can they walk away with millions and leave workers with zero?’: Toys R Us workers say they deserve severance

Toys R Us isn’t paying severance to its 30,000 workers who will lose their jobs as the retailer shuts down, even though it doled out millions in executive bonuses a week before it filed for bankruptcy. Now, some workers are calling on lawmakers to create new rules that would require bankrupt companies backed by private-equity firms to provide compensation to their workers.

On Friday, more than a dozen workers met with lawmakers in New Jersey, where Toys R Us is based, to push for severance pay. Workers also called for new regulations on leveraged buyouts, as well as windfall taxes that would prevent private-equity firms from running a business into the ground and then walking away with huge sums of money. read more »

Facebook Fends Off New NYT Charges Over Data Access

The head of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee said on Monday he planned to ask Facebook Inc about a New York Times report that the social media company allowed Apple Inc and other device makers to have "deep" access to users' personal data without their consent.

"The Commerce Committee will be sending Facebook a letter seeking additional information" about issues including transparency and privacy risks, Republican Senator John Thune said in a statement.

Facebook shares fell 0.4 percent to close at $193.28 even as Wall Street's stock indexes rose for the day. Both Democrats and Republicans raised concerns about the report.

The software referred to by the New York Times was launched 10 years ago and used by about 60 companies, including Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Blackberry Ltd, HTC Corp, Microsoft Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Facebook's vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong wrote in a blog post.

The Times said Facebook allowed companies access to the data of users' friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders.

The Times report said: "Some device makers could retrieve personal information even from users' friends who believed they had barred any sharing." Facebook denied that device makers could retrieve personal information from users' friends if they had barred such sharing. read more »

Ex-Barclays Trader `Destroyed' Co-Worker for Not Changing Rates

A Barclays Plc trader referred to a female colleague with a derogatory term after she refused to help him in an interest-rate rigging scheme that prosecutors say involved both of them.

Philippe Moryoussef complained that Sisse Bohart wasn’t doing enough to help him influence interest rates in a way that would benefit his trading position. A lawyer for Bohart read out the messages from Moryoussef in a London court on Thursday as she tried to distance herself from some of the other traders accused of fixing the Euribor rates.

Bohart, Moryoussef and three other bankers are on trial for allegedly taking part in a conspiracy to defraud. The U.K. Serious Fraud Office accuses them of trying to rig Euribor, the euro interbank offered rate, an interest rate benchmark linked to trillions of dollars worth of loans and derivatives. Moryoussef, who is in France and not participating in the trial, denies the charges, as do the other four.

“What a b---, I destroyed her," Moryoussef said in a message to Christian Bittar, a trader at Deutsche Bank AG, who has pleaded guilty to the same charge.

“Tell her you’ll forgive her” in exchange for oral sex, Bittar responded.

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Mercy Health to pay $14.25 million fine to Feds

Cincinnati-based Mercy Health is forking over more than $14 million dollars to the Feds.

It's over alleged kickbacks to doctors for paying them to refer patients to the hospital.

And it settles what's called a False Claims Act, which fines companies, often in healthcare or pharmaceutical fields, for defrauding governmental programs.

Mercy Health Care is one of the largest healthcare systems in the country, which runs 500 facilities in Ohio and Kentucky. But the government is showing no mercy on Mercy.

The total settlement is $14,250,000 to settle allegations that Mercy Health had improper financial relationships with referring physicians. read more »