Investigations
Somebody kept paperwork, and eventually somebody else read it.
Washington Let Lenders Approve $793 Billion in Pandemic Payroll Loans on the Borrower's Word. A Houston Man Reported 50 Employees and $375,000 in Monthly Payroll for a Company With No Staff, and Bought a Lamborghini.
The Paycheck Protection Program opened in April 2020, weeks after the CARES Act created it. Its purpose was to keep small businesses paying their employees through the first lockdowns, and its governing principle was speed. The loans were fully guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, made through private lenders, and
Two Separate Federal Courts Ruled Google an Illegal Monopolist Within Eight Months of Each Other. Google's Punishment So Far Is a Scheduling Requirement, and Its Profit That Year Was $132 Billion.
On August 5, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in general search and general search text advertising. Eight months later, on April 17, 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court
A U.S. Judge Let a Private Law Firm Prosecute the Lawyer Who Won a $9.5 Billion Pollution Verdict Against Chevron. That Firm Had Represented Chevron as a Client Three Years Earlier.
From 1964 to 1992, Texaco was the sole operator of oil concessions covering roughly 1,500 square miles of Ecuador's Lago Agrio region, in the heart of the Amazon. Plaintiffs' attorneys say the company discharged an estimated 16 to 18.5 billion gallons of "produced water&
Shell Paid a Nigerian Military Commander $1,364 Days After His Men Fired on Protesters Outside Its Offices in 1994. Ken Saro-Wiwa and Eight Others He Helped Convict Were Hanged, Then Pardoned Thirty Years Later to Restart Oil Production.
On March 3, 1994, Shell Petroleum Development Company paid Major Paul Okuntimo and 25 of his men a 30,000 Naira "honorarium" — about $1,364. Okuntimo commanded Rivers State's Internal Security Task Force, the unit formed weeks earlier specifically to handle unrest in Ogoniland. An internal
Marriott Acquired Starwood's Reservation System in 2016 Without Noticing Chinese State-Linked Hackers Had Already Been Inside It for Two Years. Its 2024 Settlement Requires Learning the Due Diligence That Was Supposed to Catch That the First Time.
In July 2014, attackers later assessed by U.S. investigators as linked to China's Ministry of State Security got into Starwood Hotels & Resorts' guest reservation database. They stayed. In September 2016, Marriott completed its acquisition of Starwood for roughly $13 billion, absorbing the reservation system, the
West Fertilizer Company Told the EPA Its Worst-Case Scenario Was a Small Ammonia Leak, No Fire or Explosion. Fifteen People, Mostly Volunteer Firefighters, Died Proving It Wrong Twenty Minutes Later.
West Fertilizer Company had been mixing and storing agricultural chemicals in the small Texas town of West, population roughly 2,800, since 1962. On the evening of April 17, 2013, a fire broke out inside the wood-frame facility. Firefighters, most of them volunteers, arrived to fight what looked like
3M Invented the Chemical Behind Scotchgard, Sold It to DuPont as a Raw Material for Fifty Years, and Found It in Its Own Workers' Blood by 1976. It Kept Selling It Anyway, Until Its Own Liability Made It Stop in 2000.
In 1953, a 3M lab assistant named Patsy Sherman spilled a fluorochemical compound on a tennis shoe and couldn't get it off. The stain resisted everything, and 3M turned the accident into Scotchgard. It was a good story, and 3M told it often. What 3M told far less
Boeing's Quality Manager Spent Years Warning That Sub-Standard Parts Were Slipping Onto 787s Unchecked. He Died Alone in a Parking Lot Mid-Deposition Against the Company, and the Case Closed Within Months.
For 32 years, John Barnett worked the assembly lines that built America's commercial airliners, first on the 747, 767, and 777 programs in Everett, Washington, then from 2010 to 2017 as a quality manager at Boeing's 787 Dreamliner plant in North Charleston, South Carolina. In 2017
A Hand-Tightened Blind Flange and a Botched Shift Handover Killed 167 Men on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha Platform in 22 Minutes. No One at the Company Was Ever Criminally Charged.
At around 10 p.m. on July 6, 1988, a pressure safety valve that had been pulled for maintenance that morning let gas condensate leak past a blind flange that had only been hand-tightened. Within 22 minutes, the Piper Alpha platform, 120 miles northeast of Aberdeen in the North
Ferrero's Vanilla Flavor Comes From Petrochemicals, Not Vanilla Beans, and That's the Most Boring Fact Here. In December 2021, Ferrero Found Salmonella in Its Own Factory and Waited Four Months to Tell Anyone.
The vanilla flavor in Ferrero Rocher does not come from a vanilla bean. The ingredient list says "vanillin," and vanillin, in almost every industrial confectionery product on Earth, is made from guaiacol — a compound derived from petrochemicals — reacted with glyoxylic acid in a process refined since the 1970s.
Facebook Had Two Burmese-Speaking Content Moderators in 2015. Myanmar's Military Had a 700-Person Unit Running Fake Accounts on the Same Platform.
In 2014, Facebook's Burmese-language content review team consisted of one person. In early 2015 the company hired a second, bringing the worldwide moderation staff for a country of roughly 50 million people to two. Facebook did not have a single employee physically based in Myanmar at all.
In 1954, the Cigarette Industry Ran a Full-Page Ad Promising Honest Research Into Smoking and Cancer. One of Its Own Chemists Had Already Confirmed the Link a Year Earlier.
On January 4, 1954, the seven largest cigarette manufacturers in America bought a full page in more than 400 newspapers, reaching an estimated 43 million readers in 258 cities. The ad was called "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers," and its message was simple: recent research linking cigarettes