Labor & Employment

St. Louis – Panera Bread Co. has named Drew Madsen president, effective May 11. He will report to Ron Shaich, chairman and CEO, and oversee the core café business, while Shaich focuses on strategy, growth initiatives and innovation across the company.

Madsen served as president and COO of Darden Restaurants Inc. He also previously served as president of Darden's Olive Garden chain and was Olive Garden's executive VP of marketing prior to that.

Secaucus, N.J. – The Children’s Place Inc. is publicly criticizing a report from proxy advisory service Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommending that shareholders elect one of two board nominees from activist investors Macellum SPV II L.P. and Barington Companies Equity Partners L.P. ISS supports election of Robert L. Mettler but recommends against electing Seth R. Johnson.

Amazon.com is looking to facilitate its same-day deliveries in the New York City area by opening another 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center in New Jersey.

The National Retail Federation is calling on Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority legislation, which Congress is expected to debate this week.

Washington, D.C. - Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is returning to normal levels as officials prepare to count votes on ratification of a new West Coast labor agreement. According to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates, the ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled a record-high 1.73 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in March 2015.

New York - Human error was the number one cause of data security incidents in 2014. According to a new report released by the Privacy and Data Protection Team at BakerHostetler, in the incidents that the firm worked on in 2014, employee negligence was responsible 36% of the time.

That was followed by theft by outsiders (22%), theft by insiders (16%), malware (16%) and phishing attacks (14%).Incidents were self-detected 64% of the time. Of the incidents reported by a third party, 27 % were due to theft.

New York -- Dov Charney, the embattled founder and ousted CEO of American Apparel, is suing the retailer’s controlling shareholder, Standard General, for damages of at least $30 million.
 
Charney accused the hedge fund of an array of misdeeds, including defamation, false light, intentional interference with actual and prospective economic relations, unfair business acts and false advertising, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Mississauga, Ontario - Walmart Canada has reached agreements to acquire one distribution center, 12 store leases and one owned property formerly held by Target Canada, for an aggregate of approximately $165 million Canadian ($136.3 million).
 

When Target pulled out of Canada, it was widely expected that Walmart would snap up some of Target's locations. But Walmart has decided to acquire only 13 stores, in a deal worth $136 million.

Walmart announced it has reached agreements to acquire one distribution center, 12 store leases and one owned property in Canada. The retailer says it expects to invest another $153 million to renovate the 13 stores and distribution center, bringing Walmart’s total investment to approximately $289 million.

St. Louis -- Schnuck Markets will begin construction of a new estimated $100 million, state-of-the-art distribution center at NorthPark in Kinloch in north St. Louis County. The 915,000-sq.-ft. center is expected to be completed in summer 2016.