Posted by Andrew Nguyen.

Uber is one of the most popular apps that are around today. This application allows users to call upon a driver to take them to a destination of their choice. Uber has become a widely-used application that proves to be beneficial. However, the company is facing a lawsuit regarding their price surges. It was said that CEO Travis Kalanick faces the lawsuit that alleges that he conspired with Uber drivers to increase prices for more profit. The case is Meyer vs Kalanick. Due to the quick growing popularity of the app, the price surged. The suit alleged that the Uber drivers conspired with CEO Travis Kalanick to rig the prices for the rides.

When a user is in a popular area, the price increases due to the amount of users that are around who also want to use the app. This conspiracy was looked on to after New Year’s Eve when the prices went up to $200. The high-price surge had customers outraged by the unrealistic cost for a ride. The company appears to take advantage of how desperate users need to get a driver. By increasing their prices, users have no choice but to either accept it or find an alternative.

In the scheme of things, Uber has done nothing wrong. Sure the prices may be outrageous at times, but that’s how a business is, supply and demand. Uber drivers are independent contractors who make money off of how much they make from driving. Although the prices may be higher than expected sometimes, users are not forced to use the app. The app is available for the convenience of users. No wrong has been done regarding this company. It is tough making a living and Uber is trying to make a statement that their company is an asset to the users.

There are many alternative ways of getting to a destination. However, Uber is probably one of the most convenient ways. What people pay for their Uber ride is not by force. It is a decision that they have to make whether they want to or not. Uber gives an estimated fare price before calling for one, so users typically have an idea on how much they are paying.

Andrew is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Pooja Patel.

The Federal Trade Commission sued Volkswagen for advertising a false claim that their vehicles are environmental friendly and “clean diesel.” Volkswagen is a German manufactured car company. The vehicles that are being affected with this law suit are 2009 through 2015 Volkswagen TDI diesel models of Jetta’s, Passat’s, and Touareg SUVs, also the TDI Audi models. The sale price for these affected vehicles ranges from the least expensive $22,000 Volkswagen to the most expensive $125,000 Audi model. Volkswagen advertised its “clean diesel” vehicles through major advertisement such as Super Bowl Ads, print ads, and of course social media advertisement.

Volkswagen claims their cars are “low-emission, environmentally friendly” and  “met emissions standards and would maintain a high resale value.” These claims are alleged to be false. Volkswagen claimed that their cars had low emission and it is “clean diesel.” This means the vehicle would produce low Nitrogen Oxide by 90 percent or less. Instead, the FTC complaint states that the vehicle produces up to 4,000 percent more that the legal limit. This is harmful and dangerous to the customers, since it can cause health problems as well as environmental problems. Also, Volkswagen claimed that they met the emission standards and also would maintain a high resale value, but these claims were also false. According to the FTC, Volkswagen has installed illegal software that helped it pass emission standards.

The chairwoman of FTC, Edith Ramirez, stated that “Our lawsuit seeks compensation for the consumers who bought affected cars based on Volkswagen’s deceptive and unfair practices.” Volkswagen is also looking at a potential of $20 billion-dollar fine for violating the clean air regulations. The lawsuit is still yet to be settled therefore; exact fines are not yet confirmed. But Volkswagen’s spokeswoman, Jeannine Ginivan, responded to this issue and said, “Our most important priority is to find a solution to the diesel emissions matter and earn back the trust of our customers and dealers as we build a better company.”

In my opinion, the actions Volkswagen took were definitely unethical; they were more concerned about gaining profits. They also put consumers’ lives at risk. I think the Federal Trade Commission did the right thing by suing the Volkswagen company.

Pooja is an accounting and finance major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Pooja Patel.

The Federal Trade Commission charged a technology company, Vulcun, for installation issues with the game,“Running Fred,” and for unfairly taking-over consumers phones and installing apps on their phones without their permission.  “Running Fred” is a Google Chrome application that runs on Android phones. This game has become quite popular, and  is used by more than 200,000 consumers.

The two founders of Vulcun, Ali Moiz and Murtaza Hussein, purchased the game. They replaced the name of that app to “Weekly Android Apps” and made several changes. Through the changes, the two founders were able to attack consumers with ads. The FTC states that ““Because the Weekly Android Apps hid and accepted the default Android permissions request, these mobile apps could have gained immediate access to the user’s address book, photos, location, and persistent device identifiers. In addition, once installed, the apps could have gained access to other information, including financial and health information, by executing additional malicious code on the consumer’s mobile device.” Because of this, many people complained about not having privacy on their phone, and also “that the browser extension was opening multiple tabs and windows on their browser advertising various apps.”  The company’s actions seems to be an invasion of privacy.

Vulcun finally agreed to stop these unfair acts.  Now, the company is required to tell consumers about the types of information their products will accessed, how it will be used, and display any built-in permission notices associated with the installation of the app advertisement service. Vulcun also has no rights to hide from consumers whether their product have been endorsed by third parties.

Pooja is an accounting and finance major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Nadia Baksh.

Amaya Inc. is a Canadian gambling website who has recently been sued by US investor, Harry Weisman. This company defrauded shareholders by hiding insider trading through their chief executive, David Baazov.

Harry Weisman, the plaintiff, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan stating that, “Amaya should have revealed trades made by chief executive, David Baazov, and failed to properly disclose deficiencies in its internal controls.” Daniel Sebag, Amaya’s financial chief officer was named a defendant aside from David Baazov. Amaya’s share price were increasing while Baazov’s trades were being kept hidden. The lawsuit is planning to recover the losses of investors who bought Amaya’s shares from the time period of June 8, 2015 through March 23, 2016.

Within the previous week, Amaya’s shares decreased rapidly due to Quebec’s securities regulator, l’Autorité des Marchés Financiers, brought up charges against their chief executive about insider trading. Data shows that the company’s U.S. listed shares that trade through NASDAQ fell approximately 22% whereas the Canadian shares fell about 21% on March 23. This can be a common occurrence where U.S. securities lawsuits are filed against businesses; the bad news can lead to their stocks to fall.

Amaya announced that Baazov was taking an immediate and indefinite leave of absence, however, it will be a paid leave of absence. I do not feel as if David Baazov’s absence should be paid, because he already caused trouble and brought upon negative attention towards the Amaya company; he should pay for what he did–not be paid for his wrongful actions.

Nadia is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Michael DeCandia.

Chipotle is a fast food industry that has been a growing corporation, which serves high quality food for a cheap price. Almost everyone knew about the “Crisis of Chipotle.”

The E. Coli incident was first noticed in Washington and Oregon. The E. Coli started to spread to other Chipotle’s across the nation. It only took a couple of week for the bacteria to find its way to the east coast. In the article, There’s a Crisis at Chipotle states “Boston health officials said the cause was norovirus, a common virus, while citing the restaurant for two health violations: improper handling of poultry and the presence of a sick employee (Ferdmand, Bhattarai).”  This is a serious issue for many companies and is a challenge that Chipotle has to and will overcome.

Chipotle will rise up again. A Chipotle store closing is a sad thing to watch when you know that almost every person you know loves the food. I do not think Chipotle should be scared about losing their customers even though this outbreak happened. Mistakes are always made, which is what make us human. Even though Chipotle’s stock went down thirty percent they will overcome this issue.  Learning from our mistakes and having it never happen again is failing forward and not backward.

In the article, There’s a Crisis at Chipotle, Chad Molly states, “There is no way we’re even considering going in there today. It’s company wide, all over the country, which means it’s a problem (Ferdmand, Bhattarai).” I believe a company should deserve a second chance in most circumstances. Many people still go to Chipotle because they have never had a bad experience, so they continue to go to a place that is relativity cheap for good food that people enjoy, like myself.

Chipotle is going beyond the requirements, so that this incident will never happen again.

Michael is a marketing major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2018.

Posted by Michael DeCandia.

The people support our government. The FBI is trying to keep our country safe from the terrorists that surround the world.  The FBI was trying to work with Apple to get the shooters phone so that the FBI would be able to access the password/information they needed to find where the shooter might be going next or where his next target might be. In the article, Why Apple vs. FBI Might be the Worst Cybersecurity Dilemma Ever states, “Apple argues that the FBI is imposing unfair burden on the company and is violating its right to freedom of speech.” In Apple’s eyes it may be an unfair burden, but the FBI is irritated that Apple will not work with them to stop an event from happening against the United States. Silicon Valley was scared that the FBI would over rule the tech industry and companies would not be able to protect their future products.

Individual devices and our national security are very important things when helping protect in the United States. The NSA and other organization like the CIA or the FBI are designed to keep the nation safe from any attacks. If this event were to happen in the future with a more serious group of dangerous people how would the people feel about their safety? In the article Why Apple vs. FBI Might be the Worst Cybersecurity Dilemma Ever states, “The US government has helped develop and spread user-friendly encryption technologies for precisely this reason.”

Criminals may feel safer that they will never get caught communicating, but for right now this is the best option for the people. By working together with technology companies the government can stop more criminals lurking on the Internet today. The more the people in our country work together, the more we can accomplish to make our country a safer place.

Michael is a marketing major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2018.

Posted by Niwantha Kodituwakku.

The month of March is not only the beginning of Spring but is also the beginning of one of the most thrilling college basketball tournaments. Sixty-four selected teams ranked from seeds, one through sixteen, enter a pool and face-off in single elimination to eventually have one winner crowned champion in the month of April. Not only is this exciting for the average fan, but it’s also exciting for businesses because of the large income generated by the tournament. However, although money is made, to what extent does the distraction of this tournament have an effect on businesses vulnerable to productivity, legal risks, and morale?

Recently, I read an article pointing out that the productivity of workers plummets during March Madness. This is obviously a huge concern.  The article posted on theguardian.com states that in 2015 up to about 1.9 billion dollars was lost due to the distraction of March Madness. Up to 50 million workers participated in March Madness and up to 9 billion will be wagered in filling out more than 70 million brackets.  This is a huge concern for businesses especially for companies that run on a quarterly basis. Loss of productivity for even a small amount of time will impact the performance of the company.  Also, the fact that gambling is taking place between workers is also a huge ethical concern. The fact that workers can’t morally say no to gambling shows that certain workers may be untrustworthy and in denial.

I think the general solution for this would be to abide by the concept “work time always must be for work” so they are free to watch during their break time.  Also, businesses should also look to capitalize on team building aspect march madness brings like employees wearing their team colors to work. This would help the company’s employees get more comfortable with their colleagues and building stronger relationships. Finally, speaking to the workers that gamble on march madness may lighten the concerns surrounding what’s right and wrong to do around the workplace.

Niwantha is a finance major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2018.

Posted by Maleesha Silva.

Katy Perry, Billy Joel, and Rod Stewart etc. have asked the United States government to “amend parts of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act” (Shaw). Some have filed a brief stating what they see is wrong with the law. Parts of the law allow people that use YouTube to upload music without permission from the artist. According to Bloomberg.com, “Revenue from such services increased 29 percent last year” (Shaw).  The artists feel that their music is essentially being stolen due to the fact that they do not receive money, however, instead the websites receive the revenue through advertising.

According to the artists, because YouTube allows users to upload music without permission from the artist, the artist loses money. This is due to the fact that because the music on YouTube is available for free, there is no purchase that needs to be made. Similarly, BloombergTechnology reports in the TV industry there was an attempt to create a law “intended to curtail online copyright infringement” (Shaw).  However, this attempt ultimately ended up failing, and no law on the issue was passed.

Maleesha is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Tejas Oza.

This article is about the parents of a marine killed in a osprey crash are suing Boeing. This helicopter crashed at a military base outside of Honolulu including 21 marines and a navy man, two marines were killed.

“The lawsuit accuses Boeing Corp., Bell Helicopter Testron Inc. and Eaton Aerospace of negligence and recklessness.”( McAvoy http://www.military.com). This article stood out to me because we learned about negligence today during class. We learned that this is one of the most common types of lawsuits and occurs when someone suffers an injury because of another failure to lineup to a required duty of care.

The case goes deeper into explaining that the aircraft flew into unstable conditions for a prolonged time and suddenly the engine stalled. This situation did not violate any regulations, but with intense research it was found that the safer way would’ have been to find a safer and more stable path to ensure everyone’s safety.

This article was very intriguing, and eye-opening, not only because this can happen at any moment, but because negligence is a very common law suit.

Tejas is a business law student at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University.

Posted by Natasha Dizon.

Chris Collings, who usually eats organic food, had Chipotle once a week. After eating at a restaurant, Collings experienced cramping and diarrhea. The doctors told Collins that this was the result of one of the twenty-one ingredients consumed at Chipotle and that he had E.coli.

Hundreds of other people got sick in the Seattle area, Boston and California. E. coli, salmonella, and norovirus were found to be in the food. As a result, Chipotle is facing more than seven lawsuits from people affected by the contaminated food. Anonymous former workers of Chipotle claimed that poor hygiene was common during busy service times; people with dirty, unwashed hands were handling the food. Changes have been made even down to how and where the tomatoes have been sliced.

In my opinion, the whole crisis could have been avoided. I say this because poor hygiene and improper preparation of the food took place and could have been the reason for the diseases. As a result, chipotle suffered by facing multiple lawsuits and a bad reputation. The money they lost could have been avoided.

Natasha is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.