Current Events

Consumer advocates and antitrust experts are urging state regulators to closely examine the proposed mergers of major health insurance companies, saying they threaten to leave consumers with fewer choices and higher prices.

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The average annual retail cost of specialty drugs used to treat complex diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis now exceeds the median U.S. household income, according to a report to be published Friday.

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A yearlong federal investigation into the dietary supplement industry has resulted in a widespread crackdown on the sale of tainted or misleading products.

The Justice Department said on Tuesday that it filed criminal and civil enforcement actions against 117 companies and individuals.

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Education Management Corp., an operator of for-profit colleges partly owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., agreed to settle whistle-blower lawsuits in which it’s accused of illegal recruiting practices for $95.5 million, the largest such accord in American history, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

The Pittsburgh-based company operated a “high pressure recruitment mill,” paying recruiters based on the number of students they persuaded to enroll, Lynch said Monday at a Washington press conference.

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German automaker Volkswagen is apologizing for its violations of federal air pollution emission standards with a full-page ad in 30 U.S. newspapers, The Verge reports. 

The ad contains a letter from Volkswagen's U.S. CEO Michael Horn apologizing for his company's decision to install software on diesel models of its cars dating back to 2008 that violate the Clean Air Act by activating required air pollution protections only during emissions tests, according to the report. 

"Over the past several weeks, we've apologized to you, our loyal customers, about the 2.0L VW emissions issue," Horn writes in the letter that is included in the advertisement, which is titled "We're working to make things right."

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A television ad during the Republican presidential debate last Tuesday depicted pale bureaucrats rubber-stamping the word “DENIED” on the files of frustrated Americans, beneath a red banner of Senator Elizabeth Warren evoking a Communist apparatchik.

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Amid an ongoing investigation into superbug outbreaks nationwide, U.S. regulators have ordered a Pennsylvania company to recall its scope-cleaning machines used at UCLA and more than 1,000 other hospitals and clinics.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it ordered the recall
because Custom Ultrasonics had continued to violate federal law and those lapses could result in an increased risk of infection for patients.

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The nation’s second-largest for-profit college operator, Education Management Corporation, is expected to agree to pay nearly $90 million to settle a case accusing it of compensating employees based on how many students they enrolled, encouraging hyperaggressive boiler room tactics to increase revenue.

The civil settlement, the largest ever involving false claims made to the Department of Education, is expected to be announced in Washington on Monday. The case against the school was initially brought by whistle-blowers and joined by the Department of Justice and several states in August 2011.

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Kia has announced the latest in a string of major recalls plaguing the auto industry this year, this one impacting nearly 260,000 late-model Soul crossovers.

The maker says that a faulty steering gear assembly could cause the vehicle’s steering system to fail, the steering wheel itself even coming lose.

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Volkswagen AG said 430,000 of its new cars had “implausible” carbon dioxide ratings as it continues talks with regulators in an attempt to address the emissions cheating crisis.

The figure means more than half of the roughly 800,000 affected vehicles were from the current 2016 model year. Volkswagen is still investigating previous model years and what the correct CO2 ratings should be, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company said in a statement late Friday.

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Tens of thousands of New Yorkers who had their wages garnished or bank accounts frozen in a surreptitious debt-collection scheme will receive $59 million in a class-action settlement that also bars a major network of collectors from continuing the practice.

The settlement, which was filed late on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, deals a significant blow to an industry that in recent years fed off a recessionary rise in consumer debt actions as companies bought up charged-off debt at low rates and then sought to recover the full debt for themselves.

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