Posted by Cynthia Mihalenko.

JBS’s plan to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange are uncertain now due to their legal issues. The company, located in Brazil, is the world’s largest meatpacker. Plans for a global reorganization were in place to try and boost their company’s value. JBS is already in the U.S. market, as they own Pilgrim’s Pride and Swift & Company. The new company they would reorganize into would be called JBS Foods International and would be based in Ireland.

Current developments have both JBS’s Chief Executive Wesley Batista and his brother, Chairman Joesley Batista, suspended from managing their companies until the investigation is over. JBS has not announced a new replacement and this has also fueled speculation that JBS’s plans for global reorganization are on hold. Company spokespeople have denied they are changing their plans and also denying any wrongdoing by the Batistas. One investigation is the overbilling in government contracts where some funds were paid as bribes to politicians. Another investigation is whether the company received favorable treatment from Brazil’s National Economic Development Bank. Analysts at some of Brazil’s banks have expressed concern that the legal problem could delay the reorganization as Guilherme Figueiredo, a fund manager at Sao Paulo base investment firm M. Safra states that “Our feeling is that the new (corruption probe) will at least delay the NYSE listing.”

Investors are rightfully fearful of JBS, now that it is under this investigation. No one wants to invest in a company if their CEO cannot be trusted. However, the Wall Street Journal interviewed several analysts and they knew of a large pool of talent that the company could tap into if they needed someone to take over should Wesley Batista step down. This should help alleviate some of the investor’s concerns.

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

Posted by Stephanie Ramos.

Like no other company, Google has revolutionized the way we conduct web searches over the last ten years. However, in the years after it went public, Google’s increasing market dominance was generating both “sky-high profits and unwanted regulatory attention.” In April 2015, the European Union’s antitrust chief formally accused Google of abusing its dominance in web searches, bringing charges that could “limit the giant American tech company’s moneymaking prowess.” This is the first case that antitrust charges have been brought against Google, despite a years long faceoff between the company and regulators in the EU. Most importantly, it “will almost certainly increase pressure on Google to address complaints that the company favors its own products in search results over its rivals’ services.” In addition, a formal antitrust investigation into the company’s Android smartphone software is underway.

Regulators have focused on accusations that Google “diverts traffic from competitors rivals to favor its own comparison shopping site.” However, Google has defended its business practices, by stating that “[P]eople can now find and access information in numerous different ways—an allegations of harm, for consumers and competitors, have proved to be wide of the mark.” In today’s modern world, privacy laws and consumer protection laws have come under intense scrutiny. Big companies, such as Amazon and Facebook, have become subjects of investigations in matters such as low-tax arrangements and protecting people’s online data. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission investigated “antitrust complaints against Google, but closed that inquiry in 2013 without reaching a formal finding of wrongdoing” in the way it arranges its Web search results. In addition, the investigation into Google can increase political tensions between the European Union and the United States.

Antitrust laws are statutes developed to protect consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. In this case, the EU is accusing Google of abusing its powers by “diverting traffic from competitors rivals to favor its own comparison shopping site. This case raises the issues of corporations and ethics. In this case, Google is a big company that generates billions of dollars in revenue. However, whether these revenues are generated through ethical practices is an ongoing question that EU is trying to solve. “Google will have [ten] weeks to make a formal response to the charges.” It “can also request a formal hearing during a procedure that commonly takes a couple of years and often results in companies’ eventually making appeals at the Court of Justice of the European Union.”

Stephanie is a business administration major with a concentration in international business at Montclair State University, Class of 2016.

Criminal law is certainly an important part of the study of business law, and Fourth Amendment questions always seem to come up in class.  Students are very interested in learning about when the police can search a person’s car, office or home, or when and where can they arrest someone. Generally, police need a warrant either to search a person’s property or to arrest, unless it falls within a constitutional exception.

Most students do not know that there is a difference between an arrest warrant and a search warrant.  An arrest warrant is an order by the court directing a sheriff, constable or police officer to find and arrest a person who is wanted for a crime.  In contrast, a search warrant permits a law enforcement officer to search a person’s place of residence or other location for evidence of a crime.  An arrest warrant, however, does not permit the police to search a home or building for a person where the police reasonably believes the person named in the arrest warrant may be found without the consent of the owner.  The question then becomes whether there are any other times police may enter certain areas of a third-party home and search for a person even though they are only acting pursuant to an arrest warrant.

In the New Jersey Appellate Division decision, State v. Craft, 425 N.J. Super. 546 (App. Div. 2012), Judge Graves held that exigent circumstances permitted the police to enter a bedroom of a third-party home to arrest defendant for a shooting even though they were operating solely under the authority of an arrest warrant.  The facts are as follows.

The Newark Police Department’s Fugitive Apprehension Team is responsible to dispatch officers to certain addresses where fugitives may be found based on certain intelligence.  James Craft was wanted for a shooting.  Officers arrived at the location noted in the arrest warrant.  It was a three-family dwelling located on South 13th Street.  The police believed that defendant was residing there with family on the second-floor.

The front door to the residence was open, and the police proceeded to the second floor.  The officers were in plain clothes, but at least one of them was wearing a badge around his neck. Defendant’s mother opened the door and permitted the police to enter.  The officers told defendant’s mother that they had a warrant to arrest her son. Defendant’s mother told the police that her son was not there, but offered to call him on her cell phone.  Upon dialing the number, the police heard a phone ringing behind a bedroom door. The officers believed it was defendant’s cell phone ringing and that he would most likely be in the bedroom.

When they opened the bedroom door, they found defendant attempting to escape.  The police testified they saw defendant drop a handgun as he climbed through the window.  They also discovered five vials of cocaine in plain view on the top of a dresser.  Defendant was arrested and charged.  The trial court suppressed the evidence finding that the “coincidence of a phone ringing” was insufficient evidence to justify entry into the bedroom without a search warrant and that the police did not have an “objectively reasonable belief” that “defendant both resided at and would be found at” his mother’s apartment.

On appeal, the court reversed, holding that “there was no constitutional violation by the police, and it was error to suppress the items that were seized. The arrest warrant provided probable cause for defendant’s arrest; the officers entered the apartment with [defendant’s mother’s consent]; and [the police] had reason to believe defendant was present in an adjoining room when a cell phone began ringing after [defendant’s mother] called her son.  In addition, the officers knew the arrest warrant was for ‘a shooting’ and, therefore, defendant was potentially dangerous.  Under these circumstances, there was a compelling need for immediate action to apprehend defendant, and it was impracticable for the officers to obtain a search warrant.  Thus, their entry into the bedroom was objectively reasonable, and the items seized were in plain view.”

Here, the exigency to protect persons inside the home from being shot by a potentially armed individual excused the police from failing to consider the possible “coincidence” of the phone ring. According to one of the officers, upon hearing the phone ring at the time defendant’s mother dialed, he reasoned since people generally stay close to their cell phones, he would find defendant next to his.  As a result, the search into the bedroom was reasonable.

Posted by Ali Paladino.

Recently, on September 1, 2016, the electric car maker Tesla Motors was called out for attempting to sell their vehicles directly to their customers in Missouri. The judge ruled Tesla’s efforts to rule out the middleman, car dealerships, violated state law.  The Missouri Revenue Department “gave the California-based manufacturer a license for a University City dealership in 2013 and a franchise license for a Kansas City dealership in 2014.” Both of these licenses allowed Tesla motors to sell their vehicles directly to their customers, disregarding any use of dealerships.

The court ruled this was not suitable, and Missouri Automobile Dealers Association agreed. The Association sued the State claiming that “it had given Tesla special privileges,” in their attempts to disregard using franchised dealerships to sell their vehicles. The court ruled that Tesla’s action was not technically unconstitutional, but held the licensing was not allowed. Tesla argued the ruling against them was going to damage the company and suppress their ability to compete with other motor vehicle companies. The company also argued the order was an “attempt” to “limit consumer choice in Missouri.” Yet, Tesla appears to be determined to try and continue to sell to their customers directly in the hopes that this will improve their bottom-line. Doug Smith, head of the Dealers Association, however, does not agree with Tesla’s actions and believes that it is not fair to other manufacturers. He believes all manufacturers should be “treated the same in Missouri.”

I have to agree with Doug Smith. I do not think Tesla should have the right to sell directly to their customers and completely bypassing dealerships, only because it puts the company on a different playing field than other motor vehicle companies. I do not believe that is fair.

Tesla has looked at other ways to get around laws in other states in order to improve their sales; however, I do not agree with this either. In this situation, the law stands blurry and unclear and it is intriguing to see how far Tesla will go in attempts to get around the law.

Ali is a finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Gabriella Campen.

Unfortunately, in this day and age being well-known in Wall Street circles also happens to be synonymous with being well known by the SEC. The SEC has recently charged hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman, 73, of insider trading by using his easy access to executives to gather information, which he used to buy securities from a company called Atlas Pipeline Partners.  Cooperman’s information led him to buy more securities in the firm, right before the stock’s value soared over 30% due to the company’s $682 million dollar sale of a natural gas processing facility.

After the suspicious buy, the SEC filed a federal lawsuit in Philadelphia, and accused Cooperman of abusing his access to executive information, “By doing so, he allegedly undermined the public confidence in the securities markets and took advantage of other investors who did not have this information,” said SEC Enforcement director Andrew Ceresney.  Along with barring Cooperman from any positions as a director or officer in the future, the SEC is seeking restitution of profits as well as money penalties from Cooperman and his firm, Omega Advisors.

However, Cooperman’s attorneys, Ted Wells and Dan Kramer have released a statement claiming that these allegations are “entirely baseless” and that “Mr. Cooperman acted appropriately at all times and did nothing wrong. We intend to vigorously defend against the charges and will not allow the SEC to tarnish the legacy Mr. Cooperman has built over the course of a legendary career spanning five decades.”  Cooperman is firing back and defending his career and reputation, to which the SEC is saying that they “will continue to pursue relentlessly those who engage in insider trading, regardless of their status or resources.”  This comes as a lesson that no matter who you are or how much power you have on Wall Street, you are still not exempt from following the law.

Gabriella is a marketing and finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.

Posted by Ashley Torres.

In July of 2012, Marissa Mayer became both the President and Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo!. During her time within the company, she has found herself involved in many lawsuits, and is yet hit with another. Recently, in the San Jose District, a former media executive known as Scott Ard filed the lawsuit against Mayer. He is accusing her of running a campaign that discriminates against male employees, specifically. His reason behind this alleged accusation includes Mayer’s implemented “use of the employee performance rating system to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo’s male employees.” Mayar states the employee performance rate system has improved their overall performance, but Ard believes he was fired not because of his performance, but because of his gender.

Besides just accusing Mayer, Kathy Savitt, former chief marketing office, and Megan Liberman, editor in chief, are also involved in the lawsuit for discriminating against men. As evidence of this accusation, the lawsuit alleges that 14 of the 16 senior-level editorial employees were female whom were purposely hired by Savitt, while firing men because of their gender.

In February of 2016, there was another filed lawsuit with similar accusations. A former employee by the name of Gregory Anderson was fired, while he attended a fellowship at the University of Michigan. Anderson too believed that he was fired because of his gender and not his performance because when he asked to view his documentations with his performance that supposedly resulted in his termination, Anderson was denied. Both Anderson and Ard are represented by the same attorney, Jon Parsons, in which he declined in making any comments.

Ashley is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University.

Posted by Jessica Page.

General Motors Co. has recently been in the news for its faulty ignition switches in over 2.6 million of the company’s Chevrolet Cobolts and other models that were recalled in 2014. The faulty ignition switches were found to “slip out of the run position and disable features including air bags.” This product defect has been connected to over 100 deaths and over 200 injuries. In September, the U.S. Justice Department brought a criminal case against GM. They agreed to pay $900 million to settle and a $35 million fine for not reporting the defect.

On Monday, Judge Robert Gerber stated that it is possible GM will also face punitive damages to compensate consumers who were harmed by the defect, even though the company sought to block plaintiffs making these claims. Judge Gerber has suggested the punitive damages could amount to billions of dollars if the legal claims are settled or successful. This is partially due to the fact that GM admitted in the original settlement that they “[mislead] regulators about the defective switch and [failed] to recall millions of vehicles.”

Another interesting factor for this case is the bankruptcy restructuring GM went through. In the restructure, they assumed responsibility for “future product-liability cases involving older vehicles.” Since this is so broad, it is likely that GM could be held responsible for claims on both compensatory and punitive damage because of its knowledge of the defect and conduct, but only to the extent that the “New GM” holds. GM has agreed to spend over $500 million to settle these cases and over the next few months, the company is expected to face even more death and injury cases that have yet to be settled.

Jessica is a finance and marketing major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2016.

Posted by Mariafernanda Ayin.

Best Buy is considered one of the biggest electronic selling corporations, but not even the biggest companies can avoid problems. Best Buy has been selling products like TVs, computers, and appliances such as washing machines that have had recalls.  These recalls have been one of the biggest headlines in the past couple of months in the electronics industry.

Federal Law states that it is illegal to sell and distribute products to consumers that have been publicly recalled. Best Buy, allegedly knowing that they were selling recalled products, told the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that they had created measures to stop the risk of selling recalled products, however they continue to do so. Therefore, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission decided to penalize Best Buy because the company was not able to effectively create procedures to be able to identify, separate, and avoid selling recall products. In addition, Best Buy failed to block the product code which caused them to get erroneous information that indicated that the recall product was not in inventory.

Best Buy is being blamed for selling over 16 different products and a total of 600 recall items from September 2010 through October 2015—400 of the items being Canon cameras. Some of the items sold had a risk of skin irritation, and even catching on fire, which could have caused enormous harm to the customers. Best Buy is a company that has shown a clear lack of ethics by knowingly selling and distributing recall products just to make a profit, not caring about the well-being of their customers. This unethical act caused Best Buy to settle and pay $3.8 million of civil penalty in thirty days and in addition the company needed to create a compliance program to show that they are strictly following the laws and regulations of the Consumer Product Safety Act.

After the settlement was made, Best Buy sent a spokesperson to publicly address the situation, making an announcement after the settlement, “we regret that any products within the scope of a recall were not removed entirely from our shelves and online channels. While the number of items accidentally sold was small, even one was too many. We have taken steps, in cooperation with the CPSC, to help prevent these issues from recurring.” (Kieler).

This whole dilemma that Best Buy has been through has put them in the eye of the public, and could of possibly affected their sales. However, they still remain one of the biggest companies in the electronic business, and most likely will surpass this situation.

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

Posted by Shakil Rahman.

Americans pride themselves on the idea that their country is the land of the free, where people of different parts of the world could have the equal opportunity to live as they wish, pray freely, and be free to live without being persecuted for their beliefs. It is stated in the constitution and laws are created to make sure people’s rights are not infringed upon or people are discrimination for their beliefs. But there are times when the people seem to be discriminated against because of their beliefs and it spills into the national spotlight.

Abercrombie & Fitch are multimillion dollars clothing store and in one of their stores a Muslim woman named Samantha Elauf applied for a job but she was rejected. When inquired about why she was being rejected, the company replied that the company’s dress code is “classic East Coast collegiate style” and since she wore head scarf, a headwear named Hijab that Muslim women wear, which went against the dress code, she was not hired. Ms.Elauf filed a discrimination lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch and the case went to the Supreme Court after being going through trial court and appeals court. The defendant claimed that since the plaintiff did not specifically state that the head scarf was worn for religious reasons they did not discriminate the plaintiff. The Supreme Court justices voted 8-1 for the plaintiff stating that the company should have understood that the head scarf had a religious significance, since it is of common knowledge and therefore the plaintiff was being discriminated and that is prohibited by the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The lawsuit against the company is based around the claim that the company rejected the applicant’s application for a job due to dress code violations knowing that it had religious significance. The reasoning given by the company was that the applicant did not specifically ask for religious accommodation, therefore there was no discrimination. While it is true that the applicant did not request religious accommodation, head scarves are commonly used for religious reasons in various religions and being ignorant of the fact is not valid argument. Therefore, when the company rejected Ms.Elauf’s application due to her wearing a head scarf, they were discriminating her based on her religious practices. Being ignorant of law is not sufficient excuse either, since the company is supposed to know the laws of the land it is conducting its business in.

In the modern world where globalization has brought the world, and the business world, laws are created to make sure that people are not discriminated for their personal life choices. But sometimes the laws are not interpreted in the same manner by people. For instance, for this lawsuit, the trial court granted the Plaintiff $20000 for the lawsuit, but the appeals court saw the same case and decided that there were no signs of discrimination and overturned the ruling, only for the ruling to be overturned by the Supreme Court. Interpretation of the law is an important part of the business world that must be done in a prudent manner by the courts but also by companies and individuals in order to avoid situations where a wrongdoing does not occur due to ignorance.

Shakil is a student at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University.

The Supreme Court issued an order denying an application to vacate the Fifth Circuit’s stay of a district court’s final judgment enjoining the enforcement of a Texas voting statute. The statute requires voters to produce identification before they vote. Business law students learn about injunctions (in this case, the court’s power to stop a party from acting) as a equitable remedy.

Congressman Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, sued Governor Perry and Texas Secretary of State John Steen in federal court, challenging the enforcement of the voter ID law, named SB 14. Veasey claimed that the law had the potential of preventing hundreds of thousands of people from voting. The strict Texas statute “requires the state’s estimated 13.6 million registered voters to show one of seven kinds of photo identification” before casting their ballot. Defendants responded SB 14 was designed to prevent voter fraud and argued voter ID laws were already approved by the Supreme Court in an Indiana case.

After a hearing, the district court agreed with Veasey that enforcement of the law “may prevent more than 600,000 registered Texas voters (about 4.5% of all registered voters) from voting in person for lack of compliant identification.” The district court determined the strict Texas statute was unconstitutional and enjoined defendants from forcing voters to produce ID. The Fifth Circuit issued a stay of the order, meaning defendants were temporarily permitted to enforce the law. The Supreme Court denied Veasey’s application to vacate the stay pending appeal. Led by Justice Ginsberg, three Justices wrote a scathing dissent (and in a rare circumstance, later corrected) expressing disagreement with the court’s decision not to vacate the stay.

Voting rights are analyzed under strict scrutiny. As of now, voters in Texas must show proper ID before they are allowed to vote in the midterm elections on November 4th.