Legal
August 16, 2017 at 10:19 am
A federal judge has ordered Costco to pay Tiffany & Co. $19.4 million in damages for the warehouse club’s illegal sale of counterfeit engagement diamond rings bearing the “Tiffany” name. U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said Tiffany deserves $11.1 million, plus interest, representing triple the lost profit from Costco's trademark infringement, plus the $8.25…
August 9, 2017 at 9:54 am
Gucci has filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 for allegedly knocking off its trademark stripe webbing designs. The complaint was made in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California on Tuesday. The contents of the filing include a motion to dismiss Forever 21’s earlier complaint against a threat of trademark litigation from Gucci and…
August 8, 2017 at 10:33 am
A growing number of states are sending out notices to online and catalog companies based outside their jurisdiction requiring such companies to now comply with this or that new law or regulation (key word here: “outside”). Chances are, your company has received one or more of these notices even though you have no physical presence…
August 7, 2017 at 10:57 am
While we may be in the midst of summer, the back-to-school (BTS) shopping season has already started. And for Generation Z, it’s happening in-store. Despite this emerging group of consumers growing up with phones in hand, Generation Z kids are still looking for the personal in-store experience of loading notebooks and No. 2 pencils into…
July 28, 2017 at 9:56 am
Bass Pro Outdoor World, the sporting goods retailer with 82 stores, agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle a nationwide class-action case brought in Houston by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which accused the outdoor outfitter of rejecting qualified black and Hispanic job applicants and retaliating against employees who objected to the alleged practice. The…
July 28, 2017 at 9:28 am
Top Republicans driving the GOP tax reform effort have given up on border adjustment. The border adjustment proposal was a key revenue-raising plank of the plan House Republicans unveiled last year. It would have taxed imported products but let exports go untaxed. Retailers that get many of their products from overseas raised concerns about the proposal, saying…
July 26, 2017 at 10:55 am
Members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday sparred over the implications of a bill that aims to take away states’ ability to collect online sales taxes. Republicans clashed within their own party and with Democrats in a hearing over whether or not H.R. 2887, the “No Regulation Without Representation” act, would help local economies or violate…
July 21, 2017 at 10:52 am
In this episode of Retail Right Now, Associate Content Editor Taylor Knight reviews the top retail news of the week, including antitrust concerns around the Amazon-Whole Foods deal, Wal-Mart's marketplace ad containing a racial slur and L.L.Bean moving away from its traditional back-to-school catalog.
July 21, 2017 at 10:04 am
RadioShack isn’t down for the count just yet — the company’s intellectual property is set to be purchased by Kensington Capital Holdings, a family investment firm located just outside of Boston, for $15 million. The consumer electronics retailer already owed Kensington Capital $23 million from a loan two years back when the investment firm partnered…
July 21, 2017 at 9:51 am
As part of its review of Amazon.com's recent purchase of Whole Foods, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that the retailer misleads customers about its pricing discounts, a source told Reuters on Thursday. The FTC is probing a complaint brought by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which reviewed some 1,000 products on Amazon's…
