Lawsuits Mount Against Companies for Unmet DEI Promises

Host of Companies Sued Alleging Unmet Diversity, Equity Pledges

On the heels of more companies prioritizing their new diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in recent years, a growing number of lawsuits accuse them of falling short on their promises.

Almost 40 suits have been filed against companies including Delta Air Lines Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.in the last three years because of allegedly misleading statements about diversity and equity commitments, according to an analysis of Bloomberg Law data. A common theme between the suits allege companies failed to live up to their DEI aspirations or, in some cases, implemented goals that allegedly fall outside a company’s mission to return value to shareholders.

Is your agency among the 10 best places to work in government?

For mid-size agencies, the Government Accountability Office again clinched the top spot with the National Science Foundation, Securities and Exchange Commission, General Services Administration and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission following.

SEC, Wahi brothers on the verge of settlement in Coinbase insider trading case – CoinGeek

The original deadline for the SEC to reply to the brothers’ motion would have been April 6, but it seems the two opposing parties have now come to an agreement and want a little more time to iron out the details of the likely settlement, which is why they’ve jointly requested the SEC’s date to oppose the motion be moved to June 15—the Wahis would then have until July 15 to respond to whatever the SEC puts forward.

DOGE Drops After Elon Musk’s Twitter Stops Using Its Dog LogoDogecoin (DOGE) dropped after Twitter stopped using the cryptocurrency’s mascot as its logo.

It was recently down 7.3% to about 8.6 cents and got as low as 8.5 cents earlier in the aftermath of the change.

DOGE surged as high as 10.5 cents on April 3 after Elon Musk’s social-media company inexplicably shifted to using dogecoin’s Shiba Inu as its logo instead of its iconic blue bird.

Companies That Went Public via SPACs Log Billions of Dollars in Goodwill Write-Downs

Companies that went public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies in recent years booked billions of dollars in goodwill write-downs in 2022, reflecting in part a reckoning of the heady premiums paid to secure deals during the SPAC boom.

Some of the biggest goodwill impairments in 2022 came from SPAC-backed companies like cryptocurrency platform Bakkt Holdings Inc., business-services provider Advantage Solutions Inc., 3-D printing firm Fathom Digital Manufacturing Corp., self-driving vehicle startup Aurora Innovation Inc. and now-bankrupt bitcoin miner Core Scientific Inc., according to financial and risk advisory firm Kroll LLC. Each of these five companies’ pretax impairments exceeded $1 billion last year.

Robinhood Faces $10.2M Penalty From Multiple U.S. States Over Technical Failures, Investor Harm

Retail trading platform Robinhood is set to pay up to $10.2 million in penalties for operational and technical failures that harmed investors, according to a Thursday announcement from a California regulator.

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) has joined the multi-state settlement, which followed a North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) investigation into Robinhood platform outages in March 2020.

“In addition, prior to March 2021, there were deficiencies at Robinhood in its review and approval process for options and margin accounts, weaknesses in the firm’s monitoring and reporting tools, and insufficient customer service and escalation protocols that in some cases left Robinhood users unable to process trades even as the value of certain stocks was dropping,” the DFPI said.