preemption

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis lost a huge gender discrimination case in May, and faced $250 million in punitive damages, plus possibly hundreds of millions more in compensatory damages. Rather than deal with years of appeals, both sides settled Wednesday for $152 million.

Talk about a mixed bag. On the same day that Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPS) reported much better-than-expected earnings, gave a great raised outlook, and saw its share jump more than 5 percent, it had to contend with a consumer-fraud suit, revived yesterday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in...

Under a policy of "preemption," the Bush administration sharply curtailed the rights of states to enforce stricter laws involving environment, health, mortgages, public safety and other issues. President Obama made clear this week he intends to reverse that policy, ordering federal agency heads to...