Tausi Insider

Alphabet’s GOOGL-Q Google will pay $391.5 million to settle allegations by 40 states that the search and advertising giant illegally tracked users’ locations, the Michigan attorney general’s office said Monday. The investigation and settlement, which was led by Oregon and Nebraska, is a sign of mounting legal headaches for the tech giant from state attorneys general who have aggressively targeted the firm’s user tracking practices in recent months. In addition to the payment, Google must be more transparent with consumers about when location tracking is occurring and give users detailed information about location-tracking data on a special web page, the Iowa attorney general’s office said. “When consumers make the decision to not share location data on their devices, they should be able to trust that a company will no longer track their every move,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement. “This settlement makes it clear that companies must be transparent in how they tra...

Walmart WMT-N proposed a $3.1-billion legal settlement on Tuesday over the toll of powerful prescription opioids sold at its pharmacies, becoming the latest major drug industry player to promise major support to state, local and tribal governments still grappling with a crisis in overdose deaths. The retail giant’s announcement follows similar proposals on Nov. 2 from the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, CVS Health CVS-N and Walgreen Co. WBA-Q, which each said they would pay about $5-billion. Most of the drugmakers that produced the most opioids and the biggest drug distribution companies have already reached settlements. With the largest pharmacies now settling, it represents a shift in the opioid litigation saga. For years, the question was whether companies would be held accountable for an overdose crisis that a flood of prescription drugs helped spark. With the crisis still raging, the focus now is on how the settlement dollars – now totalling more than $50 billion – will be use...

Performers entertain visitors at Cinderella Castle, at Walt Disney World Resort, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on April 18. Ted Shaffrey/The Associated Press Florida lawmakers are mulling plans to reverse a move that would strip Walt Disney Co. DIS-N of its right to operate a private government around its famous theme-parks, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the plan. In April, lawmakers had given their final approval to a bill ending Walt Disney’s designation as a self-governing entity, in an apparent response to its opposition to a state law limiting the teaching of LGBTQ issues in schools. The new law would also mean that Disney would have to pay more taxes, state Gov. Ron DeSantis had said in April when he signed the bill. The state lawmakers are working on a compromise that would allow Disney to keep the arrangement largely in place with a few modifications, the FT report said. A spokesperson at DeSantis’ office said that the governor “does not make U...

The Central Arizona Project delivers water from the Colorado River to millions of people in Arizona. Nathan VanderKlippe/Tausi Insider Nothing about Arizona’s Harquahala Valley looks like an oasis. Saguaro cactuses, the icon of the state, dot its scrubby expanses. Great billows of dust follow vehicles that travel its dirt roads. It averages 127 millimetres of rain a year, making it among the driest places in the U.S. But as any water executive can tell you, it’s what lies below the Harquahala desert that counts: an aquifer big enough to keep every faucet and factory running in Phoenix for more than six years. It’s one of the reasons the Canadian companies that have invested in Arizona water see potential profit in a drought that has grown so severe that the state may soon see its allocation of Colorado River water reduced by a quarter, and potentially even more. Edmonton-headquartered EPCOR is the largest private water utility in the state. Liberty Utilities, which is owned by Oakv...

Google parent Alphabet GOOGL-Q filed on Wednesday a redacted version of its motion to dismiss a U.S. government lawsuit against it, which argued that the company broke antitrust law to maintain its monopoly in search and search advertising. The filings on Wednesday show that the company is mounting a vigorous defence against the antitrust cases, which, if successful, could force the tech giant to spin off assets. In December, Google asked Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss both the antitrust case that the Justice Department filed in 2020 along with 11 states as well as a related complaint brought by 35 states led by Colorado. The motions were sealed and redacted versions were filed on Wednesday. The Justice Department’s lawsuit, filed by the Trump administration, alleged that Google violated antitrust law when it paid billions annually to Apple, LG Electronics Inc and other smartphone makers to ensure that Google search was the default...

A campaign by U.S. Republican state officials to bar financial institutions from winning business because of their stance on issues like climate change could have cost taxpayers as much as an estimated $708-million in higher interest payments, according to a study backed by environmental activists and released on Thursday. The study, commissioned by non-profit The Sunrise Project, attributed the higher costs primarily to reduced competition to underwrite government bonds in six states furthest along in restricting financial firms or considering doing so. The restrictions would mean fewer banks seeking to underwrite municipal bond issuance, a common way for cities to raise money. Republicans last year stepped up their backlash against firms that incorporate environmental, social or governance (ESG) goals into their business, arguing they should focus more on investment returns. West Virginia last year barred banks, including some of the largest underwriters like JPMorgan, Goldman Sach...

There's a growing rift in the U.S. over the perceived economic impact of the green movment. Philip Cheung/The New York Times News Service Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for Tausi Insider. The push by a group of state lawmakers in Wyoming last week to introduce a bill banning the sale of electric vehicles by 2035 elicited as many sarcastic snickers as concerned frowns. Even the backers of the bill admitted the effort was mostly symbolic, a supportive nod to the state’s oil and gas industry – a huge job-creation machine and revenue generator. And even if the proposed bill becomes law, its six Republican authors concede it will be difficult to enforce and unlikely to make an impact. But as a direct response to recent moves by 15 states, including California and New York, to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, the bill points up the increasingly desperate attempts by small jurisdictions who tie their economic prosperity to fossil fuels to have their voices heard over...