Legislative, Regulatory & Legal

Arlington, Va. – Cooperation among all public- and private-sector stakeholders in the retail industry is needed to ensure cyber security in the face of high-profile retail hacking attacks like the one recently uncovered at Home Depot, according to the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA). Sandy Kennedy, president of RILA, released a public statement on the importance of continuing to improve the security of debit and credit cards.

Chesapeake, Va. -- Dollar Tree Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc. announced, as expected, they have received a second request for information from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in connection with Dollar Tree's pending $8.5 billion deal to acquire Family Dollar.

Atlanta – The attorneys general of California, Connecticut and Illinois are reportedly leading a multi-state investigation into the recent data breach at The Home Depot Inc. According to Reuters, the attorneys general of New York and Iowa will also take part in the effort.  

New York -- Panera Bread would like its customers to leave their guns at home. The bakery-cafe chain joined a handful of other high-profile retailers, including Starbucks, Chipotle, and Target, to make the request.  

Atlanta - Several Home Depot customers filed a class-action lawsuit on Thursday, Sept.4 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division. The suit alleges that Home Depot failed to meet its legal obligation to protect their credit card and personal information and failed to timely warn them that their information had been stolen or compromised.

Family Dollar has rejected the revised proposal made by Dollar General on Sept. 2 on the basis of antitrust regulatory considerations. The Dollar General offer may be financially superior, the dollar store operator noted, but it's not likely to pass muster with the Federal Trade Commission.
 

Jacksonville, Fla. - Body Central Corp. is enacting a one-for-10 reverse stock split of its common stock. Each 10 shares of common stock will be converted into one share of common stock.

The number of outstanding common shares will be reduced from approximately 17.2 million to approximately 1.72 million. The number of authorized shares and the par value per share will remain unchanged.

Matthews, N.C. — Family Dollar Stores on Friday rejected the sweetened, $9.1 billion take-over bid made by Dollar General on Sept.