Legal

Simply Fashion Stores has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it plans to liquidate substantially all of its assets. The Birmingham, Ala.-based urban fashion retailer, which operates nearly 250 stores in 25 states, said declining sales was one of the primary factors behind the bankruptcy. In a court filing, the restructuring officer for the retailer said the company expects some Simply Fashion locations will be forced to close as part of the process. The filing didn't disclose how many stores would close. The company has 1,332 employees.

China's e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group, has been fined 800,000 yuan ($129,000) by the price bureau in eastern Zhejiang province for violations by third-party sellers during promotions on its e-commerce platforms. Since Alibaba turned "Singles' Day", a Nov. 11 Chinese response to Valentine's Day, into an online shopping festival in 2009, the event has grown to similar proportions as Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the United States.

A union representing Wal-Mart workers who lost their jobs when the retailer suddenly closed five stores last week said it would seek an injunction on Monday from the National Labor Relations Board to have them rehired. Wal-Mart announced last week that it was closing five stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and California temporarily to fix plumbing issues. It said it would seek to reopen the stores, which employed about 2,200 people, as quickly as possible.

Duluth Trading Co., the outdoor apparel retailer whose marketers rarely have met a pun they didn't like, apologized Wednesday to singer Don Henley for making one out of his name and a song. Henley, lead singer of the Eagles, sued Duluth Trading in October just a few days after the company started advertising its henley T-shirts with the slogan "Don a Henley and Take It Easy."

As widely expected, Europe's antitrust chief, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, has issued a formal Statement of Objections (SO) regarding the operation of Google's shopping search comparison service — marking the latest step in a five-year long antitrust investigation and an escalation of European anti-competition action against Mountain View.

The "party" may be back on in the IPO world. There wasn't much to celebrate about the first three months of 2015 in the IPO market. It was the worst quarter for bringing companies public in more than three years, according to Renaissance Capital. What better company to change that vibe than Party City? North America's largest party goods retailer by revenue filed paperwork Monday to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "PRTY." 

Australian class action law firm Slater & Gordon Ltd filed a suit against surf-wear retailer Billabong International Ltd, accusing it of "conduct that was misleading or deceptive" in a series of earnings updates four years ago. In a statement filed in the Federal Court of Victoria state on Wednesday, and obtained by Reuters a day later, Slater & Gordon said its client, the Malone Family Superannuation Fund, was seeking unspecified damages from Billabong, which it accused of breaching its disclosure obligations.

RadioShack's rescue deal to keep 1,740 stores open was attacked on Thursday by the bankrupt retailer's top creditor, a failed bidder who called the auction a sham and sought a new sale. RadioShack, which filed for bankruptcy last month, told a U.S. bankruptcy judge it had selected the Standard General hedge fund as the winning bidder in the private four-day auction, which ended just before Thursday's hearing. The hedge fund plans to operate the stores in conjunction with wireless phone company Sprint Corp. 

American Apparel said in a filing on Wednesday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered an investigation into a potential legal violation related to its founder and former Chief Executive Officer Dov Charney. The filing said the investigation is a nonpublic, fact-finding inquiry into matters arising from the board committee's review that formalized Charney's firing in December 2014. The fashion retailer said it intends to cooperate fully with the regulator in its investigation.

Target has agreed to pay $10 million in a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit related to its 2013 data breach that consumers say compromised their personal financial information, court documents show. Under the proposal, which requires federal court approval, Target will deposit the settlement amount into an interest-bearing escrow account, to pay individual victims up to $10,000 in damages. The proposal also requires Target to adopt and implement data security measures such as appointing a chief information security officer and maintaining a written information security program.