Articles by Robert Burnson and John Gittelsohn

Startup Accused of Gouging LA Fire Victims on Rent

A venture capital-backed startup illegally jacked up rents for furnished apartments in Los Angeles — more than 50% in one example — after last month’s wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, the city attorney’s office alleged in a lawsuit. Blueground …

Musk Escalates Altman Legal Feud, Casting OpenAI as Monopolist

Elon Musk is ramping up his feud with Sam Altman, alleging in a court filing that OpenAI is trying to corner the market for generative artificial intelligence and sacrificing safety in a race to get ahead. In a revised version …

Delta Sues CrowdStrike Over ‘Catastrophic’ Software Glitch

Delta Air Lines Inc. sued cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. over the chaos caused this summer by a “catastrophic” software update that disabled millions of computers worldwide and grounded much of the airline’s passenger fleet. The update crippled Delta’s operations …

Abbott Loses $500 Million Infant Formula Verdict, Lawyers Say

Abbott Laboratories was ordered by a jury to pay almost $500 million over allegations that it hid the risk that its premature-infant formula can cause a potentially fatal bowel disease, according to lawyers for the mother who won the first …

China Construction Bank Sued in US Over Reinsurance Fraud Losses

China Construction Bank Corp., the nation’s third-largest commercial lender, was accused in a US lawsuit of enabling a massive fraud in the reinsurance industry that left companies with “monumental losses” and sinking stock prices. The bank allowed employees to conspire …

Ferrari Sued for Failing to Fix ‘Life-Threatening’ Brake Defect

Ferrari NV was accused in a US lawsuit of failing to fix a “dangerous safety defect” with the brakes in some of its luxury sports cars despite issuing multiple recalls. The recalls were no more than “an interim corrective measure” …

Ex-First Republic Engineer in California Gets Prison for Cloud Hack

A former First Republic Bank cloud engineer in San Francisco was sentenced to two years in prison for vandalizing the company’s computer network after he was fired in 2020. Miklos Daniel Brody logged into the bank’s network without authorization, using …

JPMorgan Agrees to Pay $290 Million to Settle Epstein Suit

JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $290 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it knowingly benefited from former client Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, according to a court filing late Thursday. Lawyers for Epstein’s victims filed a notice of settlement …

Fox’s Tubi Accused in Lawsuit of Paying Women Less Than Men

Fox Corp.’s streaming platform Tubi was accused in a gender-discrimination lawsuit of paying top female executives 28% less than their male counterparts and offering them fewer promotions. Sarah Ekstrom, Tubi’s former chief people officer, said in a proposed class-action suit …

Wells Fargo to Pay $1 Billion in Class-Action Lawsuit

Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to pay $1 billion to settle a shareholder lawsuit that accused it of making misleading statements about its compliance with federal consent orders following the 2016 scandal involving the opening of unauthorized customer accounts. The …