Legal

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.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) announced Thursday it's making a public push against Saks Fifth Avenue after the retailer argued in court that transgender employees are not covered from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. HRC is suspending Saks' largely positive score from its Corporate Equality Index, a ranking of companies' LGBT-related policies. The move comes less than two weeks after Saks & Co. told a court that a discrimination lawsuit filed by a transgender former employee should be dismissed because "transsexuals are not a protected class under Title VII" of the historic civil rights law.

A federal judge has ruled that customers suing Target for last year's data breach may move forward with their claims. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in St. Paul, Minn., dismissed claims by plaintiffs in certain states but largely denied Target's request to toss out the proposed class-action lawsuit. Magnuson rejected Target's argument that the consumers lacked standing to sue because they could not establish any injury. The customers' "allegations plausibly allege that they suffered injuries that are 'fairly traceable' to Target's conduct," Magnuson wrote.

Major retailers are illegally selling prohibited toy guns online, the N.Y Attorney General's office alleged Thursday. Eric Schneiderman's office sent cease-and-desist letters to the retailers (Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Kmart, Sears and ToyArsenal.com) to halt sales of these toy guns to New Yorkers immediately. "Once this matter was brought to our attention, we placed a shipping block on our website to prevent the mentioned items from being sent to the state of New York. We're also confident that measures are in place to prevent these items from being sold at our New York stores," Wal-Mart said in a statement.

Avon Products stock swooned more than 12 percent in mid-day trading after the company agreed to pay $135 million for long-standing federal charges that it paid bribes in China and other countries. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission got in the action. Avon, which calls itself the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics, agreed to pay $68 million to the Justice Department and $67 million to resolve the dispute with the SEC. 

The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors has apparently avoided the need to raise postage rates sooner than it wanted. A key deadline for the rumored hurry-up rate hikes passed yesterday when the Consumer Price Index numbers for November were announced. As the board drew close to losing its quorum last week (because of Congressional inaction), there was talk the governors were preparing rate hikes that would be announced this week and implemented in the spring. That appeared to be the last chance for the governors to raise rates until Congress got around to approving new governors.

Workers at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in Pennsylvania who worked off the clock and when they were supposed to be on break, or who were forced to skip their breaks, will receive $151 million in unpaid wages and damages, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding lower and appellate court decisions. The case affects nearly 187,000 people employed by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from March 1998 through April 2006. 

Millions of Target customers whose credit card data and identifying information was stolen by hackers face the prospect the retailer owes them nothing for their ensuing troubles, and they may have the government to thank for it. The retailer is counting on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from last year grounded in the principle of no harm-no foul to win dismissal of about six dozen lawsuits that piled up after it disclosed a massive data breach six days before Christmas. 

Teen retailer Deb Shops has filed for bankruptcy protection and is taking steps to liquidate if it can't find a buyer, according to court documents filed Thursday. This is the second time the Philadelphia-based business, which operates 295 stores, has sought bankruptcy protection. The company also filed for Chapter 11 in 2011. Court documents say Deb Shops has about $90.5 million in assets and $120.1 million in liabilities. The latest revenue figures for the company show sales of about $205 million as of Nov. 1, 10 percent less than last year.