Legal

In a rare instance of corporate criticism of a president, Staples on Wednesday said that President Barack Obama "appears not to have all the facts" when he criticized the company's policy of limiting worker hours. BuzzFeed reported earlier this week that Staples had toughened up enforcement of a rule limiting part-time employees to 25 hours. The story reported that the company's stance was seen by many workers as an effort to avoid paying benefits. Under the Affordable Care Act, companies with more than 50 employees must pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more.

Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Thursday and said it had a deal in place to sell as many as 2,400 stores to an affiliate of hedge fund Standard General, its lender and largest shareholder. Wireless company Sprint Corp would operate as many as 1,750 of those stores under an agreement with Standard General, Sprint said separately. RadioShack's bankruptcy, which has been expected for months, follows 11 consecutive unprofitable quarters as the company has failed to transform itself into a destination for mobile phone buyers. 

Women's clothing retailer Cache has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after running out of time and money to complete a turnaround. The New York-based company said Wednesday that it will keep running its business, but it also will continue to close stores and sell or renegotiate some of its leases. Cache operates 218 stores, or 20 fewer than it operated in December. The retailer has secured up to $22 million in financing from Salus Capital Partners to keep operating during the bankruptcy proceeding.

The New York State attorney general's office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves. The authorities said they conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. 

SkyMall LLC, the in-flight catalog company that sells exercise bikes that double as desks and automated ball-launchers for dogs, filed for bankruptcy as air travelers spend more time on their mobile phones and Amazon.com. The seat-pocket marketer of more than 30,000 products reached 650 million travelers a year, according to its website. Phoenix-based SkyMall, which suspended its catalog and fired 47 employees from its call centers Jan. 16, said in a court filing that it hopes to keep up barebones operations while seeking a buyer.

More than four years after the Dodd-Frank banking reforms directed the Federal Reserve to set a standard for swipe fees — i.e., the money charged to retailers by banks for each debit card transaction — the hotly debated issue appears to have hit a dead end with the U.S. Supreme Court deciding yesterday to not hear an appeal from retailers who contend the Fed set the fees too high.

Target has company when it comes to its Canadian troubles. Target's Thursday announcement of defeat in Canada may be one of the largest retreats from the country by a U.S. retailer, impacting 133 stores and more than 17,000 employees. But the news follows other major U.S. retail chains that have had trouble across the northern border and abroad.

Wet Seal filed for bankruptcy protection late on Thursday, a week after the struggling apparel retailer laid off 3,700 employees and closed 338 stores. The company listed assets of $10 million to $50 million and liabilities of $100 million to $50 million, according to the filing. Wet Seal, which reported slowing year-over-year sales growth for the past five quarters, warned last month that it may seek to restructure under provisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code if it fails to address liquidity in the near term.

Etsy, the online seller of handmade crafts and vintage goods, is planning to go public as soon as this quarter with plans to raise $300 million, sources told Bloomberg News. If the Brooklyn-based site rakes in that amount of cash, it would be the biggest New York tech IPO since 1999. The last time a New York-based tech company garnered that kind of a valuation was the dot-com boom when high valuations benefited listings from TD Waterhouse Group and Barnesandnoble.com, the e-commerce spinoff of the bookstore chain.

Some 20 state attorneys general have joined the federal antitrust investigation of competing bids by Dollar General Corp and Dollar Tree Inc to buy Family Dollar Stores Inc, a development that potentially complicates the companies' efforts to win U.S. approval for a deal. The attorneys general concern focuses on the likelihood that the loss of one of the chains would lead to higher prices for discount store customers, many of whom are poor, said two sources who spoke privately because they weren't authorized to speak to reporters.