The list, which reportedly took 18 months to compile, was created with the help of environmental research groups, including KLD Research & Analytics, Trucost and CorporateRegister.com.

The top 5 Companies on the Green Rankings are:

1. Hewlett-Packard
2. Dell
3. Johnson & Johnson
4. Intel
5. IBM

The latest in a decade-old lawsuit, today’s ruling upheld the decision of a lower court that had to decide whether Taco Bell or TBWA was responsible for paying tens of millions of dollars in damages to Wrench, the ad firm that came up with the idea of “Psycho Chihuahua,” which later became the internationally-known Taco Bell Chihuahua.

A good description of the events leading up to the trial can be found in today’sappellate court’s decision. To sum it up, a licensing executive from Taco Bell approached Joseph Shields and Thomas Rinks, the founders of Wrench, after seeing the concept of Psycho Chihuahua at a trade show. He thought it would be a good fit for an upcoming Taco Bell ad campaign.

After price negotiations between Taco Bell and Wrench fell through, Taco Bell turned to their primary ad agency, TBWA, to create a mascot and theme for an upcoming $500 million ad campaign. Taco Bell gave TBWA materials related to Psycho Chihuahua to develop a similar idea for the campaign.

When Shields and Rinks saw the now famous “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” Chihuahua on TV in 1998, they quickly sued Taco Bell.

The two creators of Psycho Chihuahua won the suit and a $42 million judgment.

Taco Bell, after initially entering a “joint defense agreement” with TBWA, then sued the agency, asking for “full indemnification.” Because Taco Bell gave the Psycho Chihuahua materials to TBWA, the judge ruled that Taco Bell was fully liable for the $42 million in damages awarded to Wrench. Taco Bell appealed and lost again with today’s ruling.

Asked whether or not Taco Bell will appeal to a higher court, further dragging out this case, a company spokesperson said, “We just received the opinion today and are reviewing our options.”

The most common problems associated with Ortho Evra, Bloomberg notes, are:

According to the story:

J&J’s annual report cited “a significant decline” in Ortho Evra sales because of “labeling changes and negative media coverage concerning product safety.”

Worth noting, J&J has never actually gone to trial over Ortho Evra:

“Their exposure was pretty high, so they were willing to talk turkey about settling,” [one of the plaintiff's attorneys Russell] Rein said. “They have been settling out quite a few cases where the damages are significant and the causation is clear.”

Some groups, such as Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, question why the patch is still on the market and have petitioned the FDA to ban it within six months.

J&J disagrees, as Gloria Vanderham, a spokeswoman for J&J, says, “When used according to the FDA-approved label, Ortho Evra is a safe and effective method of hormonal birth control.”

As part of the settlement, the company agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Who knew admitting to a single misdemeanor would be so costly?

From the article:

“These are potentially harmful drugs that were being peddled as if they were, in the case of Actiq, actual lollipops instead of a potent pain medication intended for a specific class of patients,” said acting United States Attorney Laurie Magid in a statement.

The sum is broken down into two parts. The first part, $50 million, will go to resolve criminal charges, according to the story, and the second part, $375 million, will take care of a civil complaint against the company.

That civil complaint was first brought about by a former sales rep who, on the government’s request, agreed to wear a wire to a company sales conference. Three other individuals (two of them also former Cephalon sales reps), later filed suit as well. The four whistle-blowers will share $46.5 million from the settlement.

Now Mr. Vitale faces 30 months in prison and $180,000 restitution to be paid to AOL. As noted by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, “Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging in child’s play.”

While that is true, Mr. Vitale also had 22 prior convictions, including running an online prostitution ring through the website Craig’s List, which couldn’t have helped his odds in this case.

His partner in crime, Todd Moeller, was sentenced to 27 months back in November.

A Thai Member of Parliament (MP) and a newspaper critic face millions of dollars in damages and significant prison time after being sued for libel by Tesco, the UK's largest retailer, according to a story by the Guardian Newspaper. Both were sued for saying that Tesco, known as Tesco Lotus in Thailand, is expanding too aggressively in their country at the risk of "mom-and-pop" businesses and for accusing the company of using loopholes to avoid paying Thai taxes. Both the MP and newspaper critic say Tesco sued them as a bullying tactic to silence debate.

The story notes that if the newspaper critic loses the case and receives the maximum punishment he will go bankrupt. However, despite the massive damage claims, Thai courts have never awarded over £33,000 (approximately $65,000) for damages in libel cases.

Tesco responded in a statement:

"Tesco is of course not trying to intimidate Mr Kamol or Mr Jit, but we do have a right to defend our company and our colleagues against false allegations. We took this action reluctantly but felt we had no choice after a sustained campaign of misinformation spread by the two individuals over many months.

Tesco does not have a history of acting through the courts and will only do so under extreme provocation. In fact until 2008 we had never taken any libel action at all. It would therefore be irresponsible and misleading to suggest that Tesco had a policy of attempting to suppress criticism."

Well, Thailand isn't the only place where Tesco is suing someone for speaking out against the company; it's also filed libel charges in its own backyard. The company recently filed libel charges in the UK against the Guardian newspaper for reporting on similar tax avoidance. According to the Guardian:

Tesco said the Guardian knowingly misled its readers in a series of articles and a podcast. The retailer said the Guardian had wrongly alleged that Tesco had contrived a tax avoidance structure involving a series of joint venture partnerships held largely offshore to avoid paying up to £1bn of UK corporation tax on sales of its UK properties. Tesco also said the Guardian had wrongly accused the retailer of having already avoided corporation tax on £500m of profits from two property deals using that structure.

The Guardian, like the Thai dissenters, argued that Tesco's lawsuit was nothing more than an attempt to bully people from speaking out against the company. The newspaper continued:

"This looks like a deliberate tactic by Britain's largest retailer to shut down perfectly legitimate inquiries into their methods of tax avoidance. At the same time that two Tesco directors are reported to have lobbied the government in private on matters of taxation, the company is now seeking to chill public debate on the same issues"

The Guardian article also states that Tesco's new U.S. operations, Fresh and Easy, has come under fire by political activists, though the company says it has no plans to file libel charges in the U.S.

The department found that 3M was shaving six percent off its tape products (the company’s advertised one-inch tape actually came out to 0.94 of an inch), violating the state and federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, according to the Fresno County deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case. As part of the settlement, 3M agreed to pay $600,000 in civil fees, $75,000 to a state trust fund benefiting various California weights and measures offices and $18,000 to the Department of Measurement and Standards, according to one report.

As with most settlements, 3M didn’t admit or deny guilty, but in this case it won’t be that easy to get off the hook: one only needs a ruler to figure out that they were, in fact, misrepresenting the size of their tape. The company agreed to remove the one-inch and other inaccurate labels from its tape products. Crisis averted.

“He did it because he really, truly thought that Merck was doing the wrong thing and he just couldn’t abide by it, even though he was putting his career on hold,” said Steinke’s lawyer, Steven Cohen of Chicago.

The important thing about this is that Steinke’s reward just gave a lot of incentive for employees to report wrong-doing at their own companies. This is a welcome change of pace compared to the all-too-common story of careers ending, marriages falling apart or the generally depressing fallout by being a whistle blower (if you want to see Hollywood’s take, watch ‘The Insider’ starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino).

It appears that Steinke, who is married but has no kids, has already embraced retirement. He recently left his new job at a smaller pharmaceutical company, one that “shared his values.”

Sure, buying a hybrid vehicle is a small step toward preserving the environment, but the company’s motivation for doing so is a tad suspect. Adding a single new hybrid SUV to a fleet of cars is not enough to justify a press release bragging about how “green” your company is.

A quote from the release:

“Going green in our business seemed like the logical way to move with our fleet, given that the decision is based on ecologically sound data,” said Marc Shpilner, president and CEO, Limousine Eighteen. “If we are going to start the movement as consumers, then we owe it to the environment to think of more ways to make a difference at the work place. Recycling paper, soda cans, more efficient light bulbs, etc. are a great start, but we wanted to go farther. This year, we started discussing getting a hybrid SUV for our fleet.”

They spent a year discussing the pros and cons of buying one hybrid SUV before deciding?

Unfortunately Limousine Eighteen isn’t alone; green-washing is becoming more and more common as consumers really do consider environmental issues when choosing where to spend their money. While it’s laudable (and increasingly profitable) for businesses to take a bigger role in curbing carbon emissions and upping their eco-friendliness, it’s counterproductive to try and grab publicity from relatively insignificant claims.

Today the bar has been raised by companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on everything from becoming carbon neutral to cracking down on suppliers for their wasteful habits. If Limousine Eighteen developed a plan to replace their entire fleet with hybrid equivalents by 2012, or discovered a way to run their vehicles on nothing but leftover chicken fat, then that would be something to brag about. These days, making a whole lot of noise about nothing just isn’t going to cut it.

Some doctors were in on the scheme, too. Amgen representatives allegedly sent letters to insurance companies on behalf of participating doctors seeking pre-prescription approval for Enbrel use on their patients. The doctors, then more willing to prescribe the drug, would benefit from “frequent patient visits to have the drug injected.” If guilty, the punishment could be considerable. The HIPAA doesn’t mess around when it comes to disciplining violators. The sentence for revealing patient’s health information can be as much as 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine “if the information was transferred or used for commercial advantage.”

The two representatives that made the claim are Elena Ferrante of New Jersey and Mark Engelman of California. According to their lawyer, Lydia Cotz, their allegations have been backed up by Amgen sales representatives “from the northeast to Hawaii.” The two representatives say they refused to go along with the scheme and say they were punished for objecting to their superiors. Ferrante was fired in August 2005–the same year that the scheme allegedly began–and Engelman resigned in 2007 after receiving a negative performance evaluation from his boss. They’re now suing Amgen for over $15 million each, an amount that includes “lost pay, punitive damages and other compensation.”

Bedi hopes his allegations will lead to a class action lawsuit. It’s a bad sign, however, that these accusations so far seem constrained to the blog world, as no mainstream media is reporting on it. That may not bode well for Mr. Bedi’s chances of success. To top things off, Staples seems to have made no changes in its agreement with HP since the suit was filed, still only selling HP brand ink cartridges for HP printers on its website.

That leaves about 30 to 50 percent reserved for beef, 75 percent of which must be “diced.”

At the heart of the case is Campbell’s new “Chunky Fully Loaded” line of soups. Hormel believes that there is not enough beef in Campbell’s “Chunky Fully Loaded Beef Stew” to constitute being labeled stew. Although Campbell does print “soup” on the label of the can, Hormel believes that it’s hidden and not likely to be read. Apparently they fear that some consumers will think they’re eating stew when in reality they will in fact be eating soup.

Julie Craven, spokesperson for Hormel, had this to say:

“[The U.S. Department of Agriculture] has standards that determine what products can be labeled as ‘stew,’ and the Campbell Soup product does not meet this standard. This is important because consumers rely on food product labels to be accurate.”

During September, the ASA received 93 complaints regarding environmentally-friendly claims in 40 different ads. The organization says more and more companies are making green claims before the science is completely developed.

“Low emissions need to be more defined and we need details of use, production and manufacture if we are to allow claims that brands are carbon neutral or recyclable,” an ASA spokesperson said.

The group created this checklist for advertisers to review before they make elaborate claims:

• Get your facts right. Don’t exaggerate the environmental benefits of your product: advertising claims should be backed up with documentary evidence.

• This is an area where scientific knowledge is developing all the time. Don’t present claims as being universally accepted if the science is inconclusive.

• Don’t use pseudo-science or terms that will not be generally understood by the readers of your ad.

• Avoid sweeping or absolute claims such as “environmentally friendly” or “wholly biodegradable”. It’s unlikely that you will be able to prove your product has no environmental impact.

• Saying something is “locally” produced should mean exactly that. Shipping goods in from abroad or the other end of the country doesn’t make them ‘locally sourced’.

Four companies who have had ads come under scrutiny by the ASA include Toyota, Lexus, easyJet and Volkswagen.

Ads for the products show cartoon caricatures of young girls and include sayings such as “I am committed”, “I am a citizen of the world” and “I am unstoppable.”

Bill Boraczek, senior vice president for marketing at Nair competitor Sally Hansen, had this to say:

“Hair removal skews higher with teens. 26 percent of the usage is with girls between 12 and 19, while it only represents 13 percent of the population; we’ve always been strong with this demographic.”

Commentary: WTF? Seems a little extreme and unfortunate to us.

At issue is that the four companies (which control 95% of the colostomy bag market in the country), illegally agreed to divide the country into territories where they would not compete against each other.

Commentary: In looking at the statements coming out of the Italian government, it is not clear why BMS got the biggest fine… were they the ringleader? Or simply the one that benefited most? Either way, looks like BMS could use some compliance training for their European subsidiaries.

Although the American Red Cross was created in 1881, while Johnson & Johnson started using the trademark in 1887, the American Red Cross did not receive its Congressional charter until 1900.

In the lawsuit Johnson &Johnson contends that even with the charter, the Red Cross was never granted use of their Red Cross logo for commercial activities which competed with private business.

Johnson & Johnson’s claims elicited an angry response from Red Cross president Mark Everson.

“For a multibillion dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute … simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene…The Red Cross products that J.& J. wants to take away from consumers and have destroyed are those that help Americans get prepared for life’s emergencies…I hope that the courts and Congress will not allow Johnson & Johnson to bully the American Red Cross.”"

According to the Red Cross these products were part of safety and health kits and the company only $2 million annually from sales of the products. Furthermore the Red Cross, in a rebuttal on its website, points out that it has been selling these kits commercially since 1903.

If Johnson & Johnson wins in litigation the Red Cross will have to turn over the remaining products to Johnson & Johnson for destruction and possibly pay punitive damages for the items sold.

Commentary: What is going on in the head of Johnson & Johnson? Even if J&J had a strong case, it is ALWAYS BETTER to reach a private settlement than to run to court. After a 100 years of cooperation on using a similar trademark it seems quite petty for a company with $53 billion in revenues in 2006 suing over $2 million in proceeds that went a non-profit to be used towards disaster relief.

As the company cuts jobs and confronts a whole host of other legal problems, it seems to us that the last thing that Johnson & Johnson needs is more bad publicity. We scanned the commentary and blogs on this story and overall it is running highly negative against J&J. They could lose more money in sales than they hope to gain in this lawsuit. Sometimes the best battles are the ones not fought and maybe right now Johnson & Johnson doesn’t seem to understand that.

According to FINRA, the industry’s regulatory body, an acceptable “mark-up” is typically around 5%. However, Morgan Stanley charged mark-ups as high as 18% across 2,800 transactions to retail and individual investors.

It is much harder for an individual investor to know what price he or she should pay for an individual bond (unlike stocks or mutual funds whose current market prices are widely disseminated), and it appears that Morgan Stanley took inappropriate advantage of that.

Commentary: Is it just us or does it seem that Morgan Stanley has an inordinate amount of compliance, ethics, and regulatory problems? Let’s hope this puts the pressure on the company to move forward with their compliance department (since we put “Morgan Stanley Ethics Officer” into a Google search and turned up zero hits…so we don’t think they have one of those).

If found guilty, the companies face fines of up to 10% of their sales in the areas where the illegal collusion occurred.

Commentary: Akzo seems to be doing its best in vying for most corrupt/fined European company of the decade. They were fined $110 million in 2005 for fixing the prices of MCAA (a chemical used in detergents, food and cosmetics), and in 2006 they paid $32 million for their involvement in a hydrogen peroxide cartel. Akzo also confirmed earlier this year that it was being investigated by the EU for possible price-fixing in its sales of the chemical calcium carbide.

On a separate note, the importance of a good M&A attorney will be shown in the Kemira Oyj proceedings. The subsidiary being investigated, Finnish Chemicals Oy, was acquired in 2005, but the cartel being investigated allegedly occurred between 1994 and 2000. Did Kemira negotiate any such potential liability to be left with the seller?

Stora’s North American division is a subsidiary of the Finnish paper, packaging and forest products manufacturer Stora Enso Oyj.

To many, the decision by Stora Enso to fight the charges in court was a curious one for three reasons:

(1) the company’s alleged collusion partner, competitor UPM-Kymmene Corp. (also of Finland) had already taken advantage of a corporate leniency agreement and received amnesty through “tattling” on Stora Enso. This create a negative perception of assumptive guilt which would have to be overcome;

(2) Juries are generally more sympathetic to people, not corporations;

(3) DOJ’s Antitrust Division has a criminal prosecution winning record better than the 1927 Yankees (with 454 wins and 11 losses over the past 10 years).

Thank you to www.overlawyered.com for that last statistic. The website boasts an interesting analysis of this case called Fighting Collusion Through Collusion.

Commentary: A tip of the hat to David Rosenbloom, the national head of McDermott Will & Emery’s white-collar practice, who let his client take its chances in court (and successfully defended them), as that was an incredibly gutsy move.

Police confirmed the deaths which were caused when at least twenty billboards collapsed as heavy winds pounded different parts of the city…

Another massive-size billboard on Korangi Road fell on a rickshaw, injuring three persons. Eyewitnesses said that the billboard didn’t fall down right under its location but due to the high pressure of wind, it fell about 30 ft far away from where it was actually fixed…

The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) had banned oversized billboards for a year but allowed them following intense pressure from advertisers…

At the same time, citizens have expressed extreme annoyance with the city’s statement that has asked the citizens to stay in their homes. “I am sure no where in the world citizens have had experienced what we did today,” said one, adding that the citizens of this mega city feel threatened from the ‘mega’ hoardings that have covered the whole city like monsters who can kill anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

Commentary: Now that’s reporting (cover the whole city like monsters who can kill anyone, anywhere and anytime)! Hey Hollywood… see anything interesting here as a movie plot?

Sometimes we are just plain happy for simple things… like not living in Kararchi. Life is complex enough without having to worry about attacking billboards. On a serious note, the pressure from advertisers is real as the Pakistani economy has been on fire over the past few years (growing at nearly 10% annually) – in part due to the ‘global war on terror.’

At the core of the development are Xerox’s technical achievements, which have increased the amount of a tree that can be used (doubling the yield per tree from 45% to 90%) and used less water and chemicals in production (resulting in reduced energy use and emissions by up to 75%). And finally, as the paper is materially lighter in weight, it costs less to transport (and uses less energy along the way).

The downside to the paper, however, is that it does not age as well as normal paper, turning yellow over time.

Commentary: This is an excellent example of aligning business innovation with environmental responsibility for greater profit (in keeping with Ethisphere’s slogan GOOD. SMART. BUSINESS. PROFIT.).

Due to the “yellowing” issue, however, there will be limits to how widely this paper will be used (do you really want all of your documents to turn yellow?). As Xerox itself points out, the core market for this yellower greener paper will be in paper printouts which are not intended to have a long shelf-life (such as invoices, statements, direct mail pieces, manuals, catalogs and brochures).

Xerox appears to be stepping up its sustainability and resource commitments across the board. Less than two weeks ago on July 19th, the company also announced that it was joining the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), increasing the total membership of the group to 31 corporations representing nearly $2 trillion in revenues.

Commentary:This represents the latest in a series of headaches for Dean Foods The wild card is whether this civil action will encourage investigations by the DOJ or Tennessee’s Attorney General’s office.

Other recent problems for the company include a consumer backlash/boycott for lobbying for lowered standards for the definition of “organic,” as well as substantial penalties paid to the SEC over allegations that Dean Foods helped publicly-traded Fleming Companies falsely inflate profits by issuing side letters.

To help protect its reputation, IBM announced this week that it was establishing a code of conduct to govern its more than 5,000 employees who have a presence (or “avatar”) on “Second Life” and other online universes.

IBM appears to be the first corporation to create rules governing virtual worlds- its guidelines address such things as protection of intellectual property, export controls (!), proper attire, and even sexual harassment and discrimination:

IBM strives to create a workplace that is free from discrimination or harassment and takes steps to remedy any such problems. External virtual worlds, however, are outside of IBM’s control. If you are in a virtual environment in conjunction with your work at IBM and you encounter behavior there that would not be acceptable inside IBM, the recommended approach is to ignore such behavior and to “walk away” or even sign out of the virtual world.

Commentary:Check out the full IBM net-world guidelines here.

Back in the Q2 edition of Ethisphere, we reviewed IBM’s “real world” code of conduct and were impressed – while this online code is not quite as good, they are the first corporation to have established one of its kind, which is impressive in its own right.

See the avatar in the picture up above? That’s the avatar of Sam Palmisano, the CEO of IBM. Other than dressing himself in the IBM blue, it looks like he grew about a foot and hit the gym… sure beats having to work out for real.

ABB said the probe is uncovering payments of concern made in Asia, South America, and Europe (with a particular focus on Italy).

The company disclosed that it was investigating several cases of suspect payments and it was unclear whether they were linked. ABB said it had not made any provisions and it was not sure how much money could be involved.

Commentary: Gee… this must be an isolated incident (with payments of concern found only in ASIA, SOUTH AMERICA, AND EUROPE). We checked their website and they do not have operations in Antarctica, which could account for that continent’s exclusion. Our opinion is that this is pretty lame as ABB has had multiple scandals in recent years (such as a secret executive pay scandal in 2004 and a financial fraud scandal back in 2000). There really is no excuse at this point for not having a robust compliance program in place that could prevent the most basic of illegal business practices: bribery.

If determined to be guilty, Intel faces up a fine of up to 10% of its European sales during the period of alleged infraction – which could be enormous.

Then we go to Hungary, where the news wasn’t much better for the other partner in the Win-Tel alliance: Microsoft.

According to media reports, Hungary’s state Competition Authority (also known as GVH) conducted unannounced raids on the offices of the local subsidiary of Microsoft last week over suspicions that the company was abusing its market power in its relationship with large software distributors.

At issue are the “loyalty discounts” that Microsoft uses with its existing software distributors – which make it very economically unattractive of the distributors to carry any software other than Microsoft Office.