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Official: Edmunds settles with marketing firm accused of faking dealer reviews

Filed under: Car Buying, Government/Legal

Back in July, Edmunds sued a Texas company named Humankind Design Ltd. for fraud and breach of contract. Among other services, Humankind Design claims to be an online reputation management company, but the lawsuit says that the site created 2,200 fake accounts in order to post positive dealerships reviews on Edmunds.com.

Now, Edmunds says that the case has been settled requiring Humankind Design to agree not to register users or submit reviews on Edmunds as well as providing information about the accounts and reviews it fraudulently created; Humankind Design also has to pay Edmunds an undisclosed monetary settlement for legal fees. Edmunds added that it is working with other identified sites – including Google+, Yelp and Foursquare – which Humankind Design may have also created fake reviews for in the past. The press release for the settlement is posted below as is the original release announcing the lawsuit in July.

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Edmunds settles with marketing firm accused of faking dealer reviews originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Aug 2013 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“Car Czar” Rattner settles with Cuomo over pension fund kickbacks

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal

Stephen Rattner

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has announced that his office settled with former White House Task Force “Car Czar” Stephen L. Rattner for $10 million. The agreement comes following charges that Rattner engaged in a kickback scheme involving New York’s pension funds while he was an executive with Quadrangle Group.

Rattner, who oversaw the U.S. government rescue of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009 and shepherded the companies into bankruptcy, will also be barred from doing business with the State’s pension fund for a period of five years as part of the agreement with Cuomo. The deal will settle two lawsuits filed in November against Rattner.

“I am gratified that we have been able to reach an agreement in this case, as it resolves the last major action of our multi-year investigation,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The state pension fund is a valuable asset held in trust for retirees and supported by taxpayers. Through the many cases, pleas and settlements in this investigation, I believe we have been able to help restore and protect the integrity of the state pension fund.”

Mr. Cuomo will be sworn in as New York’s governor on Jan. 1.

Rattner said in a statement: “I am pleased to have reached a settlement with the New York attorney general’s office, which allows me to put this matter behind me. I apologize if during the course of this process there is anything I did that may have made reaching this agreement more difficult. I respect the work of the attorney general and his staff to ensure that the New York State Common Retirement Fund operates properly and in the best interests of New Yorkers.”

[Image: Neilson Barnard/Getty]

Continue reading “Car Czar” Rattner settles with Cuomo over pension fund kickbacks

“Car Czar” Rattner settles with Cuomo over pension fund kickbacks originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Former Car Czar Rattner settles with SEC, sued by Cuomo

Filed under: Government/Legal

Steven Rattner

Former White House Auto Industry Task Force member Steven Rattner is being sued by New York State Attorney General and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo for allegedly paying kickbacks to win investments in the state’s pension fund.

Cuomo is seeking $26 million from Rattner, and to bar him from trading securities in New York for life, an agreement that might hamstring Rattner if he can’t do securities work in New York any longer.

Rattner, who recently penned a book about his time on The Obama task force (“Overhaul,” [Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt, 2010]) that guided General Motors and Chrysler through bankruptcy, already settled a related case against him brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought a civil lawsuit against the private equity executive and former New York Times reporter.

Rattner’s former investment firm, Quadrangle, settled with New York State and the SEC last April, which was accompanied by a statement by Quadrangle saying Rattner’s conduct was “inappropriate, wrong and unethical.” Quadrangle agreed to pay $7 million to Cuomo and $5 million to the SEC without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Continue reading Former Car Czar Rattner settles with SEC, sued by Cuomo

Former Car Czar Rattner settles with SEC, sued by Cuomo originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IndyCar: 2010 Indy Japan 300 settles oval championship [SPOILERS]

Filed under: Motorsports, Honda, Racing

2010 Indy Japan 300 – Click above for high-res image gallery

Heading into Saturday, only two races remained in the 2010 Izod IndyCar Series season, and the championship is coming down to the wire. Team Penske’s Will Power raced to an early lead in the standings, his dominating performances on the road and street courses earning him the inaugural Mario Andretti award as the road course champ.

Team Target Chip Ganassi teammates Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon headed to Japan in second and third respectively and first and second in the oval championship standings. Power’s lead before the green flag waved at Twin Ring Motegi was 17 points over Dario, the same lead Franchitti has over Dixon in the race for the A.J. Foyt oval champ award. This weekend’s Indy Japan 300 was crucial, with the potential to end with both championships decided even though the season’s final race at Homestead is still two weeks away.

Follow the jump to see how it played out.

Gallery: IndyCar: 2010 Kentucky Indy 300

[Images: Jonathan Ferrey, Chris Graythen/Jiji Press/AFP/Getty, Shizuo Kambayashi, Greg Baker/AP]

Continue reading IndyCar: 2010 Indy Japan 300 settles oval championship [SPOILERS]

IndyCar: 2010 Indy Japan 300 settles oval championship [SPOILERS] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 19 Sep 2010 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Toyota settles lawsuit tied to crash that triggered recalls

Filed under: Government/Legal

Toyota floormat/pedal entrapment

For a recap of the various Toyota recalls, visit our comprehensive guide

Toyota owners had been contacting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about unintended acceleration issues for years, but one tragedy put the spotlight on Toyota’s problems. Last August, California police officer Mark Saylor and three family members died when the family’s 2009 Lexus ES 350 rental flipped and caught fire after a trapped floor mat reportedly caused the vehicle to speed out of control. A month later Toyota, officially recalled 3.8 million vehicles for floor mat issues and by February 2010 over eight million vehicles were recalled for unintended acceleration issues worldwide.

Automotive News now reports that Toyota has settled with the family of Mark Saylor for an undisclosed financial sum just over a year after the accident. Toyota reportedly declined to offer any insight into the agreement, and there’s a good chance we’ll never know how much money the company paid to settle the case out of court. Toyota is likely years away from putting all of its legal troubles in the rearview mirror, though. The spate of recalls generated numerous other lawsuits and several previously decided court cases were re-opened after the automaker’s troubles became front-page headlines.

[Source: Automotive News sub. req.]

Report: Toyota settles lawsuit tied to crash that triggered recalls originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 19 Sep 2010 08:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ford settles $131m Explorer rollover case

Filed under: SUV, Government/Legal, Safety, Ford

2001 Ford Explorer gravel road

Ford’s second-generation Explorer has just cost the company $131 million. Despite the popularity of the seminal SUV, it’s had more than its fair share of legal scrapes regarding its rollover resistance. And while the Explorer/Firestone tire kerfuffle has long since exited the headlines, the Blue Oval continues to get its pocketbook dinged by the SUV. According to Autoblog sister site AOL Autos, this week, a jury in Jackson, Mississippi was to decide on possible punitive damages in the lawsuit over the death of Brian Cole, a promising baseball player headed for the New York Mets. Ford settled with the family over the matter of the 2001 rollover accident after a jury awarded $131 million in damages. Punitive damages were the next decision the jury was to consider before Ford settled.

Ford apparently disagrees with the blame placed on its vehicle, saying that the 22-year-old Cole was speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. Cole died from injuries sustained after being ejected from his Explorer during a rollover accident on a Florida highway. His cousin, Ryan Cole, survived the accident, which Ford attributes to the use of a seatbelt and the Explorer’s crash performance. While a settlement can be taken as a de facto acknowledgement of the Cole family’s claims that the Explorer is inherently unstable and its safety belts can fail in rollovers, the automaker maintains that it didn’t receive a fair trial, and settled to bring closure to the issue.

[Source: AOL Autos]

Ford settles $131m Explorer rollover case originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Followup: Toyota and Severinsky settle hybrid patent dispute ahead of ITC hearing; Ford also settles

Filed under: Hybrid, Government/Legal, Technology, Toyota

2010 Toyota Prius – Click above for high-res image gallery

Following on the heels of our earlier report about yesterday’s scheduled hearing between Toyota and Alex Severinsky at the International Trade Commission came word that the parties have settled. Neither side has released any details about the agreement – and they probably won’t. Toyota had previously been found guilty of infringing upon Severinsky’s patent, which centers around getting power to a vehicle’s wheels with a gasoline-electric vehicle using both high- and low current.

In all likelihood, Toyota agreed to pay royalties to PAICE (Severinsky’s company) for all of the hybrids it has sold and will sell in the United States until the patent expires in 2012. This means that the threat of a ban on imports of Toyota hybrids has been lifted – at least until the next case.

In related news, Ford has also settled with PAICE over hybrid patent issues. The details are confidential, but there’s a bit more information after the jump.

[Sources: Bloomberg, PAICE]

Continue reading Followup: Toyota and Severinsky settle hybrid patent dispute ahead of ITC hearing; Ford also settles

Followup: Toyota and Severinsky settle hybrid patent dispute ahead of ITC hearing; Ford also settles originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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