Legal

Amazon is putting its customers in South Carolina on notice that they're responsible for paying sales taxes on purchases they made with the online retailer last year. Amazon doesn't collect sales taxes on merchandise shipped to South Carolina, as it doesn't in most states.

It's estimated that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) lose upwards of $66,000 annually through fraud. An increased awareness of fraud among large merchants has forced fraudsters — those individuals who perpetrate crimes against retailers — to switch their attention to small businesses that provide an easier target because of the lack of safeguards they have in place.

The Borders near me closed the other month. Wasn't surprising. Ditto for Circuit City. Gone. A few years prior to that it was Hollywood Video that rolled its end credits. The problem is, none of them had to go. They each died of self-inflicted wounds.

Back in 2008, illustrator and designer Tori LaConsay painted a sign as a love letter to her neighborhood in Atlanta that read "You Look Nice Today" followed by a little heart. Now H&M has apologized on its Twitter and Facebook for copying the design.

The New York Times has examined the "human costs" that go into the iPad and other such devices, drawing upon interviews with several dozen "current or former employees and contractors, including a half-dozen current or former executives with knowledge of Apple's supplier responsibility group."

On a dreary day last April, Tim Storm, the founder of FatWallet, and his 54 employees formed a convoy of some 30 cars, three moving trucks and a trailer laden with two fiberglass cows, and drove five miles north from their old corporate home in Rockton, Ill. to the new FatWallet headquarters in Beloit, Wis.

Zooey Deschanel isn't kicking shoe retailer Steve Madden around in court anymore over a $2 million endorsement deal. Last week, the "New Girl" star filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit that claimed she was never paid any money for the use of her name and likeness in connection with its shoes and accessories.

Several months after successfully getting debit card transaction fees capped, retailers are taking aim at credit card transaction fees. According to TheStreet, 5 million retailers have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard and 13 other large banks.

Since 2006, Macy's has carried the Martha Stewart Collection of home products under the banner, "Only at Macy's." So when Martha Stewart struck a 10-year deal last month to sell some branded products at rival department store J.C. Penney, Macy's legal department took notice.

Even as Apple unveiled new partnerships with publishers focusing on e-books and digital textbooks last week, lawyers have amended a class-action lawsuit against Apple and five of the six big publishers accusing them of "deep antagonism" toward Amazon and its pricing scheme.