Legal

Apple employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found. The world's most valuable company is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The strategies Apple uses are

The former CEO of Tuesday Morning has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the discount retailer, saying she was fired just months after revealing she had breast cancer. The lawsuit by Kathleen Mason follows a discrimination filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last summer. Mason's lawyer, Rogge Dunn, says she was fired during a phone call last June, even though she had overseen the company's growth during her tenure.

Rihanna is suing British retail giant Topshop — chaired by billionaire Sir Philip Green — for $5 million for selling T-shirts bearing her image without her consent. A source exclusively told the New York Post the superstar's team had tried to negotiate with Topshop owners Arcadia Group for eight months over the rights to her image, "but they offered her $5,000 and said they don't care." Rihanna, 25, has hired international law firm Reed Smith to file the suit in London.

The National Retail Federation on Wednesday criticized a fire-and-building safety agreement for Bangladesh, led by labor groups such as Europe's IndustriALL. "While the proposal put forth by the labor unions addresses a number of shared concerns, the accord veers away from commonsense solutions and seeks to advance a narrow agenda driven by special interests," NRF CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement. Wednesday was the deadline for retailers to decide whether to sign the agreement, which is designed to prevent a repeat of another disaster in Bangladesh's garment industry.

A federal judge approved a $40 million class-action settlement Monday between Skechers USA Inc. and consumers who bought toning shoes after ads made unfounded claims that the footwear would help people lose weight and strengthen muscles. U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell in Louisville approved the deal, which covers more than 520,000 claims. About 1,000 people eligible for coverage by the settlement opted not to take part.

Wet Seal agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a federal racial discrimination lawsuit that accused the retailer of firing black employees because they didn’t fit the retailer’s “brand image.” The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund represented the plaintiffs in the class-action effort. The lawsuit alleged that former top Wet Seal executives denied equal pay and promotion opportunities to black store managers or removed them outright, replacing them with white employees.

At the American Catalog Mailers Association's (ACMA) National Catalog Forum yesterday, assorted catalog mailers and suppliers voiced their concerns regarding the Main Street Fairness Act (aka the internet tax law) and discussed their options to help see that the bill isn't passed. Having already been passed by the Senate this past Monday, the next hurdle to the bill becoming law is its passage in the House. The ACMA and its members are fighting to make sure that doesn't happen.

Traditional retailers and cash-strapped states face a tough sell in the House as they lobby Congress to limit tax-free shopping on the internet. The Senate voted 69 to 27 Monday to pass a bill that empowers states to collect sales taxes from internet

Just when you thought showrooming was here to stay, the Senate throws brick-and-mortar retailers a lifeline. For many physical retailers, including Best Buy, a national internet sales tax may signal the early arrival of Christmas. The potential collapse of the pricing advantage for online-only retailers may help brick-and-mortar models avoid a Circuit City fate. It is also good news for consumers, from a competitive stand point, and for states who will now collect much-needed incremental sales tax.

The Senate passed a bill Monday night aimed at making it easier for states to collect sales taxes for online purchases, but its final prospects remain uncertain. The bill, which passed the Senate 69-27, now heads to the House, where it faces an uncertain future because some Republicans view it as a tax increase. President Obama has said he supports the bill. The act would overturn decades-long precedent and leave many small online sellers with the task of figuring out how to manage collecting and remitting sales tax to nearly every state.