September 8, 2015
When BASF SE acquired Engelhard Corp. nine years ago for $5 billion, executives unknowingly inherited a ticking legal time bomb. It all began decades ago over the seemingly mundane industrial product talc, used in everything from wallboards to handling auto …
June 30, 2015
General Motors Co. directors don’t have to face investors’ allegations that lax supervision allowed the company to make cars with faulty ignition systems blamed for more than 100 people their lives. GM’s board had adequate risk-assessment systems in place even …
May 28, 2015
Abbott Laboratories was ordered to pay $23 million in punitive damages to a Minnesota girl whose family blamed the company’s epilepsy drug Depakote for causing her birth defects. It was the first verdict against the drugmaker over the medication. A …
April 20, 2015
Pfizer Inc.’s Zoloft antidepressant didn’t cause a boy’s birth defects, a jury concluded in the first trial of more than 1,000 lawsuits over what was once the U.S.’s most popular mood-altering drug. Jurors in state court in St. Louis Friday …
April 12, 2015
Pfizer Inc. researchers concluded last year that pregnant women taking Zoloft risked having babies with heart defects, according to evidence made public by a lawyer at the first trial of more than 1,000 lawsuits over the drug. The May 2014 …
March 11, 2015
General Motors Co. investors urged a judge to let their lawsuit proceed against the automaker’s board that they say was asleep at the switch while the company produced cars with faulty ignition systems that led to fatal accidents. More than …
January 6, 2015
Ex-Massey Energy chief Donald Blankenship won an almost three-month delay of his trial, scheduled to begin later this month, on federal charges tied to a fatal 2010 mine explosion that was the worst U.S. coal industry disaster in 40 years. …
November 21, 2014
Former Massey Energy chief Donald Blankenship pleaded not guilty to charges linked to the West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 workers in the worst U.S. coal industry disaster in almost 40 years. The former executive, 64, once a powerful …
November 19, 2014
Andy Miketa was known as the NFL’s lightest center during his two-year career with the Detroit Lions in the 1950s. At 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, Miketa used his speed and toughness to stymie defensive linemen who outweighed him by 75 …
November 18, 2014
The former Massey Energy chief, scorned by regulators and a U.S. senator, may face three decades in prison if convicted of charges stemming from a West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 workers, the worst U.S. coal industry accident in …