Legal

Target and Macy's joined with 15 other retailers in suing Visa and MasterCard over credit card and debit card fees after dropping out of a multibillion dollar settlement of a similar case. The biggest U.S. payment card firms illegally restrained competition for interchange fees by setting default rates and imposing almost identical rules for accepting cards, the retailers said yesterday in a federal court complaint in New York.

Gap's chairman and CEO said on Tuesday the U.S. retailer was ready to sign a global accord designed to prevent another deadly disaster in Bangladesh's garment industry, provided there were some "very minor accommodations." A series of incidents at factories has focused attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry while creating a trans-Atlantic divide between U.S. and European retailers over ways to resolve these issues.

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