Rutter's

Atlanta – A Home Depot customer has reportedly filed a lawsuit against The Home Depot Inc. alleging the retailer did not properly protect consumer data from the recent cyber attack that occurred. According to Reuters, Illinois resident Kelsey O’Brien filed the suit Sept. 9 in Chicago federal court.

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 Albany, Ohio – Abercrombie & Fitch has reportedly settled a shareholder lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Columbus, Ohio, regarding its pay of CEO Michael Jeffries, who has received more than $140 million in compensation since 2007. According to Reuters, the settlement with City of Plantation Police Officers' Employees' Retirement System involves no payment to the plaintiff.

San Francisco – A federal judge has reportedly approved an antitrust settlement EBay reached in May 2012. The settlement relates to a secret deal EBay reached with tax preparation software provider Intuit in which the two companies agreed not to hire each other’s employees.

According to Reuters, the settlement calls for EBay to not make any deals with any other technology companies to avoid hiring each other’s employees.

Seattle – Amazon.com is reportedly expanding a pilot of in-home installation and repair services from Seattle to markets including New York and Los Angeles. According to Reuters, Amazon has been running the pilot in Seattle since mid-2012.

New York – Rob Brown, an actor best known for his role on the HBO series “Treme,” has reportedly settled a discrimination lawsuit against Macy’s and the city of New York. According to Reuters, Brown’s suit accused three Macy’s security guards in a New York store of handcuffing him, publicly accusing him of credit card fraud, and marching him through the store before harassing and mocking him in a detention cell for an hour in a June 2013 incident.

New York -- Sycamore Partners is in early discussion with Fred’s about a potential takeover, Reuters reported.

In January, Fred's disclosed it had hired Bank of America Corp. and Peter J. Solomon Co to explore strategic alternatives after disappointing holiday sales.

According to the report, at least one other party in also in talks with Fred's.

Los Angeles – New York-based investment firm Standard General, which owns a roughly 44% stake in troubled apparel retailer American Apparel Inc, is reportedly preparing recovery plans that both include and do not include controversial former CEO and founder Dov Charney. According to Reuters, Standard General is leaving the decision of whether to allow Charney to return to the company up to the American Apparel board, following a third-party investigation by FTI Consulting.

New York -- IBM, and Apple have entered into a comprehensive partnership to spread advanced mobile and data analysis technology in the corporate world. The deal brings together two historic competitors.

The two companies are jointly working on, and will release, more than 100 mobile applications tailored to work with IBM’s data analytics and cloud services developed exclusively for Apple’s iOS operating system and for use on iPhones and iPads.

Plano, Texas – Mindy Grossman, the chief executive of HSN Inc., reportedly declined an offer to become CEO of J.C. Penney Company in May 2014. According to the Wall Street Journal, Grossman had been in advanced negotiations with Penney to take the reins as CEO but discussions ended for an unspecified reason.