Legal

Be careful when posting a negative review about a seller on eBay, warns Australian newspaper The Age, because sellers can sue buyers for defamation over negative feedback. Suing trading partners isn't exactly new, but the newspaper wrote, "lawyers predict the number of defamation cases involving online reviews and feedback will grow as people become increasingly aware of their online reputation." Feedback and reviews can have a direct impact on businesses. On eBay, low feedback can cost sellers in a number of ways: lost discounts, listings pushed down in search results, more restrictive selling limits imposed on their accounts, suspension, etc.

Sport shoes maker Skechers USA said it filed a lawsuit against larger rival Adidas AG's Reebok International Ltd, alleging infringement of patents related to the company's Go Walk shoes. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief for infringing Skechers’ patents and design rights as well as for unfair competition, the company said in a statement. Skechers also said it would take similar action against any retailer that sells Reebok's Walk Ahead RS shoes. Reebok said on Thursday it doesn't comment on pending legal matters.

Activist investor Carl Icahn said Thursday that he wants to see Family Dollar sold at once, and he told the retailer that he's prepared to seek shareholder support to fire the entire board of directors if he doesn't get his way. Icahn said in a letter to Family Dollar CEO Howard Levine that he wants three seats on the board of directors, which would comprise a new committee tasked with exploring a sale of the company. The letter said Icahn discussed Family Dollar over dinner with Levine on Wednesday night. The two didn't come to any agreement.

Jules Yap might be Ikea's biggest fan, describing herself as "crazy" about the brand. But the blogger, known for her site that shows users how to modify Ikea furniture, is embroiled in an unusual spat with the Swedish chain. Last week, Ikea sent a cease and desist letter to Yap, the creator of IKEAhackers.net, saying that the site infringes its intellectual property rights and asking for the domain to be transferred over. Ikea has since toned down its rhetoric and is now "in dialogue" with Yap to resolve the issue, according to a posting on the website. 

The National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) have asked an appeals court to overturn a federal judge's approval of a controversial lawsuit settlement over Visa and MasterCard's credit card swipe fees, saying it was negotiated by only a handful of merchants and would do nothing to bring the fees under control. The 2005 lawsuit was brought by 19 retailers and trade associations, but 10 of the plaintiffs, including all of the associations, rejected the settlement when it was unveiled in 2012.

A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled in favor of Macy's claim that J.C. Penney interfered with a merchandising contract with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia when it cut a deal in 2011 to create a collection of home goods. But the judge, Jeffrey Oing, said Macy's failed to prove that Penney was liable for punitive damages since he says the actions weren't "malicious" or "immoral." Macy's is still entitled to attorney's fees and other monetary damages from Penney related to the selling of products that were designed by Martha Stewart but sold under the JCP Everyday name last year.

Should the internet be a tax-free zone like the duty-free shops in international airport terminals? Does it make sense to subject the internet to a different set of laws than any other space? These questions are central to the proposed Marketplace Fairness Act, which would empower states to collect sales tax from online sellers.

After Etsy implied that the criminals who had hacked eBay's database were behind a recent increase in spam being sent through its messaging system, eBay pushed back. In an obvious reference to the eBay security hack, Etsy issued a warning to users that spammers were logging into some member accounts, "a direct result of user names and passwords stolen in other attacks." Etsy surmised that the account takeovers were cases where its members had used the same user names and passwords across multiple sites.

As Alibaba prepares for what could be the biggest tech company IPO to date, the Chinese e-commerce giant has been counseling employees on how to deal with the roughly $41 billion they could unlock through a New York listing. While some staffers have enquired if premium brand BMW sells cars in Alibaba's corporate orange, others may invest windfall stock gains in property in North America or channel funds back into startup ventures in China, hoping to build future Alibabas, bankers and financial planners say.

The largest private employer in the U.S. continues to exploit tax breaks to reward its executives, according to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a D.C. based think tank which has researched executive compensation, and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), a tax reform coalition. That finding was published in a report released yesterday, Walmart's Executive Bonuses Cost Taxpayers Millions, focusing on the retail giant's tax strategy.