Virginia
Businesses in the News
Legal
and Regulatory
| Have
News to Report? |
For
the Record is
compiled from company releases, business
journals and newspaper reports from around
the state. If you have an item for these
listings:
• Mail it to:
For the Record
Virginia Business Magazine
P.O. Box 85333
Richmond, VA 23293
• E-mail it to ForTheRecord@va-business.com
• Fax it to (804)
649-6311 |
Capital One, a McLean-headquartered
credit card and consumer finance company, was
sued by five former employees, alleging age discrimination
in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.
The suit asks $90 million in damages. A similar
suit for $50 million was settled in June; terms
were not disclosed. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Freddie Mac, a McLean-based
residential mortgage firm, agreed to pay a $125
million civil fine to settle an inquiry by federal
regulators into misreported earnings of $5 billion
from 2000 to 2002. While admitting no wrongdoing,
the company also agreed to strengthen procedures
for internal accounting and public disclosure.
This was the first instance the Office of Federal
Housing Enterprise Oversight imposed such a
fine in its 10-year history. (The Washington
Post)
Media General, a media
company headquartered in Richmond, was charged
with unfair labor practices by two unions, the
Richmond Newspapers Professional Assoc. and
the Graphics Communications International Union.
In a complaint filed with the National Labor
Relations Board, the unions protested the company
requiring members to sign a form acknowledging
they had received and were bound by a new employee
handbook. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
lowered the 2004 quota for flue-cured tobacco
to 471 million pounds, down from 526 million
pounds in 2003. The quota for flue-cured leaf,
the primary type grown in Southside Virginia,
has dropped five of the past seven years, from
nearly 1 billion pounds in 1997. Falling domestic
cigarette sales and competition from cheaper
tobacco imports are the chief causes. (Richmond
Times-Dispatch)
The Commonwealth of Virginia
announced the first felony charges for unsolicited
bulk electronic mail (“spam”) over
the Internet under a new state anti-spam law.
Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., was charged
with four counts by a Loudoun County grand jury.
Each charge carries a one-to-five year term
in prison, a fine up to $2,500, or both. (Press
release) The Commonwealth also won a case decided
by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court
upheld Virginia’s rights to withdraw water
from the Potomac River and to construct improvements
extending from the Virginia shoreline without
regulation from the state of Maryland. (Business
Wire)
