uReport: Prosecutors, GM Reach $900M Agreement To Settle Criminal Charges Over Ignition Defectr

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  (Louis Abate)
  

  Federal prosecutors are poised to settle a criminal investigation into General Motor’s mishandling of the ignition switch defect linked to more than 120 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

  Citing people briefed on the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports that today the Justice Department will likely unveil a $900 million fine as part of a deferred-prosecution settlement with GM, putting an end to an investigation that the automaker deliberately misled consumers about the safety of millions of vehicles.

  Prosecutors are also expected to charge GM with criminal wire fraud for allegedly making misleading statements and concealing information about the faulty switch.

  As a deferred-prosecution agreement, the Justice Department will eventually dismiss the case if GM abides by its terms, the WSJ reports.

  While sources briefed on the matter tell the WSJ that prosecutors are still investigating individual employees for their part in concealing the deadly defect, the current agreement likely won’t include charges against individuals.

  The defective ignition switches in Chevy Cobalts and other GM vehicles could be inadvertently turned off while the car was in operation, thus disabling power steering, braking, and airbags. While top GM executives claim to have been unaware of the problem, engineers at the car maker knew about the issue and quietly changed the switch without alerting consumers or regulators.

  It wasn’t until 2014, more than a decade after the first defective vehicles hit the road, that GM issued a recall. At the time, the company acknowledged only 13 deaths tied to the problem. However, an independent compensation fund set up to review death and injury claims related to the recall now admits to more than 100 fatalities.

  Sources tell the WSJ that the prosecutors ran into roadblock when it came to charging individuals with wrongdoing in the defect debacle because of limitations in federal law that requires investigators prove that someone intended to defraud, not just that the conduct was deceptive.

  The proposed $900 million fine against GM pales in comparison to the Justice Department’s last criminal probe into an automaker.

  Last year, the Dept. reached a $1.2 billion agreement with Toyota to defer prosecution over that car company’s sudden unintended acceleration issues.

  GM, Justice Department Near Criminal Settlement Over Defective Ignition Switch [The Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uCablevision Agrees To Sell Itself For $18 Billion To European Telecom Giant Alticer

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• While most U.S. cable/Internet operators have been looking at their fellow Americans as merger partners, New York-based Cablevision has made a $17.7 billion deal to sell itself to Altice, a Netherlands-based telecom titan.

  Cablevision, which serves more than 3 million customers in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, confirmed reports on Wednesday night that it had reached an agreement with Altice that would pay $34.90 in cash for each Cablevision Class A and Class B share. That’s about 20% higher than the most recent share price.

  This would mean that someone other than a member of the Dolan family — whose billionaire patriarch Charles Dolan founded the company in 1973 — will be in control of Cablevision and its Optimum broadband business. Altice will also acquire the Newsday newspaper and its associated brands.

  While it took around 18 months for U.S. regulators to approve the recent merger of AT&T and DirecTV (and around the same amount of time to spoil the Comcast acquisition of Time Warner Cable), Cablevision and Altice are expecting their wedding to be finalized in the first half of 2016.

  This acquisition will likely face less scrutiny than either of those deals. Altice is a relatively new entrant into the U.S. market, having recently agreed to acquire 70% of St. Louis-based Suddenlink.

  Additionally, a number of other Dolan-run businesses — including the New York Rangers NHL team, Madison Square Garden, and AMC Networks — are not part of the deal.

  In a statement from Cablevision, the Dolan family says that after more than 40 years of running the company, “the time is right for new ownership of Cablevision and its considerable assets.”

  “As a family business we are proud to be entrusted by the Dolan family with the ownership of Cablevision and look forward to continuing the pioneering path they have paved for us,” reads a statement from Altice founder and president Patrick Drahi.

  The company’s CEO, Dexter Goei, describes the Cablevision acquisition as the “next step in Altice’s long-term oriented strategy in the U.S., one of the largest and fastest growing communications markets in the world.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uAmazon Prime Adds Unsurprising New Benefit: Free And Discounted Washington Post Subscriptionsr

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  Not like this, though. Digital subscriptions. Cats optional. (Adrian Scottow)

  Two years ago, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post from its longtime owners, the Graham family. While it was Bezos himself who bought the Post, and not Amazon, it was inevitable that the two companies would snuggle up once the transaction settled. First, Amazon’s Kindle Fire came pre-loaded with the Post’s app, and now members of the Amazon Prime program for free shipping and streaming media will get a free six-month digital Post subscription.

  The free subscription isn’t bundled in with Prime forever, but members will receive a discount after those six months are up. A subscription normally costs $9.99 per month, and the price for Prime members who decide to subscribe will be $3.99 per month.

  Everyone benefits in this transaction: the Post’s digital version gains a wider national audience for the content behind its paywall. Amazon gets to brag about a new perk for Prime members. Bezos gets to smile proudly as his companies bond with each other and share customers. Customers get to stop looking for a different source for a news story once they hit the Post paywall, if news is something that interests them.

  Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Strikes Amazon Prime Alliance

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWhataburger Employee Refuses To Serve Police Officers, Gets Firedr

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• If this is a fast-food trend, it’s one that deserves stern disapproval from both a human and a business perspective. A few weeks ago, an Arby’s employee reportedly refused to serve police officers food. Now after a Whataburger employee reportedly told two cops that the restaurant wouldn’t serve them, the company has apologized and says that the employee who refused the cops has been fired.

  Now, discriminating against a category of paying customers is bad enough. Discriminating against your local law enforcement officers is even worse. From a business point of view, though, why would a 24-hour fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru window ever want to turn away business from cops, who work late shifts in their vehicles?

  The cops, who were off the government clock but working private security while wearing their uniforms, say that the employee didn’t elaborate, or even say, “Ha ha! Just kidding.” They told a local Fox affiliate (warning: auto-play video) that he didn’t say anything else at all, so they simply left and went to Dairy Queen.

  This all went down late last night, and Whataburger corporate issued an apology around lunchtime today. They posted it to their Facebook page for all fans to see:

  We were appalled to hear of an employee refusing service to two officers, as we have proudly served first responders across our system for decades. As soon as we heard of this isolated incident, we began our own internal investigation overnight. The employee that refused service is no longer employed with Whataburger. We’ve also invited the officers back today so we can apologize in person and make this right.

  Even before the company issued an official apology, the officers told FOX 4 that they weren’t going to stop eating at Whataburger, and that they figured the problem was with one employee.

  Lewisville Whataburger employee fired for not serving officers [FOX 4] (Warning: auto-play video at that link)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uThe Santa Bear Horde Is Ready To Devour Us All At Kmartr

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• If you love super cute and super affordable Santa teddy bears wearing knitted hats and scarves, and you also love getting way ahead on your Christmas shopping, Kmart is the place to go. Reader Alan snapped this picture of the adorable yet soulless horde, pleading with us all to join them in a shopping frenzy.

  Kmart likes to get a head start on Christmas, though: they put out their first Christmas ad in September again this year, airing it during the first week of the month. Nothing puts me in the mood for planning my Christmas list like Labor Day!

  Their end game, of course, is to promote layaway, and layaway plans can now last as long as 12 weeks, so customers who lack cash flow and access to credit can buy their gifts now and pay them off.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWoman Takes Out Newspaper Ad To Find Fellow Walmart Shoppers She Credits With Saving Her Lifer

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  (Mike Mozart)
  

  If you recently performed CPR on a woman who suffered a seizure and collapsed in the frozen food aisle at a Colorado Walmart, the person you helped is trying to find you and offer her thanks. She’s taken out an ad in her local newspaper in an attempt to thank whoever saved her life.

  “THANK YOU,” the message reads in the Summit Daily News begins, according to CBS Denver. “To the woman at Walmart who saved my life, and whoever performed CPR.

  When collapsed to the ground last month in the Frisco Walmart, other shoppers in the Walmart told emergency dispatchers that she wasn’t breathing and had turned blue.

  A mystery shopper heard a page over the store’s intercom asking for any Walmart employees with medical skills to report to the frozen food aisle, and ran to help, witnesses said, performing CPR on the woman.

  Emergency personnel responding to the scene took over emergency care a few moments later, and the shopper was taken to the hospital. She credits the unknown shopper for saving her life.

  “They are my angel. I just want to find this person and the other shoppers who called 911 and stayed by my side and thank them for helping me,” she told CBS Denver.

  Woman Uses Newspaper Ad To Search For Shopper Who Saved Her Life [CBS Denver]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uJudge: It’s Not Nice To Leave Nasty Notes On Speeding Tickets, But It’s Your Constitutional Right To Do Sor

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  (SarahMcGowen)

  No one gets a speeding ticket and rushes out to pay it with glee, at least, no one who likes holding onto their money. But even if it’s pretty rude to scrawl an obscene message when paying that ticket, it’s speech that’s protected by the First Amendment. That’s according to a judge who said a man’s civil rights were violated when he was arrested for writing a nasty note on a speeding ticket in New York in 2012.

  The Connecticut man was driving in the town of Liberty, N.Y. when he received a speeding ticket for going 82 mph in a 65 mph zone, with a $175 fine attached. He sent back the payment form with a message written on it, “F**k your sh***y town, bitches,” and also crossed out the word “Liberty” and scrawled “Tyranny” in its place.

  Local authorities ordered him to show up in court, where he was lectured by a judge, arrested and held for several hours on charges of aggravated harassment, reports the New York Times.

  He sued the village, whose officers had arrested him, and last week a federal judge in White Plains ruled that the arrest had violated his First Amendment rights, and allowed his lawsuit to proceed.

  “People use language like this all the time,” his lawyer told the Times. “They send letters like this to customer service at Verizon, the I.R.S. When people are unhappy, they vent on forms like that,” he added. “You shouldn’t have to get arrested for it.”

  Judge Cathy Seibel ruled that what the man wrote, “though crude and offensive to some, did not convey an imminent threat and was made in the context of complaining about government activity,” and therefore it didn’t violate N.Y.’s aggrvated harassment statute.

  “The words here are not inherently likely to provoke violent reaction, they were not directed at anyone in particular, and could not be interpreted as threatening any particular action,” Seibel ruled, according to the Huffington Post.

  The case will ultimately be decided by jurors, with Liberty to stand trial for failing to train its police officers regarding the country’s First Amendment, and an assistant district attorney liable for damages, though Seibel dismissed the suit’s claims against the two arresting officers.

  U.S. Judge Upholds Right to Scrawl Nasty Note on Speeding Ticket Payment [New York Times]
  Scrawling ‘F**k Your S**tty Town Bitches’ On Speeding Ticket Is Free Speech, Judge Finds [Huffington Post]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist