We’re a little surprised that this apparently hasn’t been picked up by the wire services yet, since it looks like it could be a big deal. The Federal Trade Commission has apparently sent civil investigative demands to multiple pharmaceutical companies, including Impax Laboratories (IPXL) and Medicis Pharmaceutical (MRX), over an agreement the companies reached on [...]

Another short but sweet item, from the 10-Q that CACI International (CACI) filed on Friday afternoon. This was in the Red Flag Alert PDF we sent out last night, but we haven’t seen any reporting on these developments, so we figure it’s still fresh (and potentially significant) enough to send as a QuickTake as …

Medical-device maker Baxter International (BAX) is in the process of wrapping up a recall of its COLLEAGUE and SYNDEO infusion pumps that the federal government sought to seize back in 2005, under a consent decree with the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Justice Department (PDF) signed in 2006, and a final …

The problems at AllianceBernstein (AB) have been well-documented for a while now: this article in Forbes from late last year provides a good summary of the various woes facing the company. The company’s stock now trades around $13 a share, a far-cry from the heady pre-financial-crisis days when the stock was trading in the …

Thanks to the fight against international terrorism and money-laundering, financial-services companies have to jump through a lot of hoops under federal law. It can seem like a lot of administrative rigamarole to customers — how often do you have to provide personal identifying information or show identification?! — but it’s serious business for the companies, [...]

It’s safe to say that New York Times reporter David Barstow made a huge splash with his April 21 story about Wal-Mart (WMT) and allegations that its dramatic success in Mexico was fueled by bribes — and that senior Wal-Mart executives did their utmost to sweep an investigation under the rug. Since then, the stock [...]

We don’t generally write about other companies’ research, and we don’t plan to make a habit of it. But recently a client asked us about reports from three different sell-side research outfits, all of which interpreted recent actions by grocery-store chain Safeway (SWY) as potentially indicative of plans to sell or go private. News reports [...]

The patent fights getting all the attention are the ones that involve the big boys of technology, especially when they’re duking it out among themselves: Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO) are suing each other, HTC and Apple (AAPL) are squabbling over the slide-to-unlock feature, Twitter is making noise about taking the high road, …

  Asset-integrity company Mistras Group (MG) is facing a criminal grand-jury inquiry by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to new disclosures deep in the 10-Q that the company filed yesterday (on the third-to-last page, in fact). The inquiry stems from “a chemical reaction [...]

Last summer, the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission began asking some pretty in-depth questions about the combined filings of United Continental Holdings (UAL), and in particular about its frequent-flier loyalty program. The bottom line: A $100-million hit to revenue in 2012. Anyone who’s ever tried to book a flight using frequent flier miles [...]