Most of the time, the Trump Administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appears to be a defunct agency. Yet, now and then, it stirs back to life. This may happen when the administration want...

Violation Tracker Global, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large corporations throughout the world.

Defenders of big business have long claimed that large publicly traded companies are democratic institutions, since shareholders are able to vote on issues of corporate policy. Activist groups, in tur...

There is something quite bizarre about the current debate on artificial intelligence. Never before have the heads of major corporations come out with warnings that their own products could threaten th...

During the second Trump Administration, many federal regulatory agencies seem to think their mission is to attack Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, often under the guise of investigating companies and...

Violation Tracker Global, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large corporations throughout the world.

The settlement between Meta Platforms and nearly all state governments to resolve litigation concerning the harms to young people caused by its social media apps is a landmark in corporate accountabil...

The Dirt Diggers Digest is normally in the business of cheering on regulators and prosecutors as they go after rogue corporations. I tend to be skeptical of claims of government overreach made by busi...

Violation Tracker Global, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large corporations throughout the world.

Johnson & Johnson has just agreed to pay at least $5.5 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims that its talcum powder products cause ovarian cancer. A federal court recently gave final approval ...

Tech barons have long dreamed of creating a libertarian territory free of all regulation and taxation. They have not yet succeeded in that self-serving effort, but the Trump Administration is increasi...

Throughout his second term, Donald Trump has struggled to find an effective message on the issue of inflation. For a time, he tried to deny the problem existed, choosing to depict the affordability cr...

Donald Trump may have thought that giving a 250th Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore would help his shameless effort to have his image added to those of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevel...

For many years, the U.S. regulatory system has been hampered by the excessive influence large corporations and trade associations exercise over the agencies. Critics call this regulatory capture. With...

Violation Tracker Global, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large corporations throughout the world.

The conservatives on the Supreme Court are fervent in the promotion of religious freedom, but they seem to be even more ardent in their efforts to protect corporate power. This is once again clear in ...

Until recently, it appeared that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was all but defunct. Soon after Trump returned to office last year, his administration removed Rohit Chopra as director of the...

For more than half a century following the passage of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, financial institutions have been required to monitor certain customer transactions to thwart money laundering. The U...

Federal bank regulators are normally concerned with getting financial institutions to reduce their risk level, but the Trump Administration has a different idea. The major agencies—the Federal Reserve...

Violation Tracker Global, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large corporations throughout the world.

Among the many unorthodox features of the slush fund being created by the Justice Department is the fact that the beneficiaries are limited to the supposed victims of the Biden Administration. Nothing...

A controversial new form of financial activity is on the rise, and a federal regulatory agency is aggressively asserting its oversight role. That sounds good, except for the fact that the head of the ...

Conventional economics teaches that wages are determined by labor supply and demand. There is, in fact, a lot more at play—and not all of it is legal. Growing evidence has emerged of a practice that h...

For years, Apple has commanded top prices based on the idea that its devices were of the highest quality. That mystique has persevered despite a series of major lawsuits alleging that the company dece...

During her interview with Donald Trump, Norah O’Donnell of 60 Minutes mentioned that the man accused of trying to assassinate him had attended a No Kings rally. Trump responded: “I’m not a king…If I w...

In its early days, Amazon.com cultivated a reputation for low prices, which helped put a lot of small booksellers out of business. That eventually gave way to a business model based on a wide product ...

Normally, my colleagues and I are happy to include a new multi-million-dollar penalty paid by a Fortune 100 company to the Justice Department in our Violation Tracker updates. This month, however, we ...

The Trump Administration leaves no doubt where it stands on street crime and drug trafficking: it supports the harshest punishments for perpetrators. When it comes to corporate crime, the stance has g...

Parts of MAGA world are up in arms over the decision by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt to name Alan Armstrong to fill the Senate seat vacated by Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s new Secretary of Homeland Security...

Under Trump 2.0, the Environmental Protection Agency has gone after the nation’s pollution rules the way a hyena devours a gazelle. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin proudly depicted the abandonment of the...

When it comes to alleged terrorists, drug cartels, so-called illegal aliens, and purported fraudulent voters, Trump’s Justice Department is quick to adopt an aggressive prosecutorial posture. The DOJ ...

Since its creation nearly a century ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been one of the country’s premier regulatory agencies, protecting investors from misconduct by large corporations an...

Donald Trump had a lot to say about crime in his State of the Union speech. Most of it was untrue, including the assertion that criminality has completely disappeared in the District of Columbia, or r...

It came as quite a surprise to see a recent Justice Department press release announcing that its Civil Rights Division had secured a $68 million settlement from a real estate developer accused of targ...

Among the many reasons why the people of Greenland would be better off sticking with Denmark rather than giving in to Donald Trump’s pressure campaign is the matter of public integrity. Transparency I...

High prescription drug prices are one of the main components of the affordability problem that continues to afflict all but the most affluent Americans. Public officials are addressing the issue, but ...

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has expended much of its energy bringing dubious cases against the president’s political foes and propping up the administration’s di...

When the Trump Administration issues a press release about regulation, it is usually to boast about the number of rules it is trying to abolish or to announce a reduction in a corporate penalty impose...

These are strange days at the Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi seems completely willing to do the bidding of Donald Trump, yet there have been press reports that he is unhappy she has...

During the first year of Trump 2.0, most federal regulatory agencies have experienced savage budget cuts, deep staffing reductions, and abandonment of their core mission. The Consumer Financial Protec...

The regulatory enforcement system is one of the many things the second Trump Administration has thrown into chaos. The DOGE assault decimated staffing at many agencies. The Consumer Financial Protecti...