Phil Mattera
Washington, Washington, D.C.
Dirt Diggers Digest: Chronicling Corporate Misbehavior (and How to Research It)
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Articles by Phil Mattera
Corporate Losers
As much as he tries to deny it, Donald Trump was the biggest loser in Tuesday’s Democratic blowout. Yet the election was also a resounding defeat for the billionaires and giant corporations who aligned themselves with the Republicans. At the head of that failure list is Elon Musk, who spent nearly $500 million in support of disastrous candidates such as Ken Paxton in Texas.
Anthropic’s Mixed Message
Among the millions of documents filed in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR database since 2001, the just submitted by the AI company Anthropic in anticipation of its initial public offering is the first in which a company uses the phrase “existential risks to humanity” in reference to its product. Anthropic’s management does not explicitly say that it shares the concern about such risks.
Risky Business - Dirt Diggers Digest
Project 2025 called for streamlining financial regulation by merging agencies, eliminating regulations, and repealing provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act designed to mitigate the risks posed by systemically important institutions. The Trump Administration is following a different agenda which neither weakens regulation nor tightens it in a way that promotes consumer protection or economic stability.
The Trump Administration Discovers Money Laundering
The Trump Administration cannot seem to make up its mind about whether to be serious about prosecuting banks and other financial entities for failing to fully live up to their responsibilities to deter money laundering. Last year, after Trump returned to office, there were no announcements of resolved anti-money-laundering deficiency (AML) cases against banks.
Disaster Management
Rarely before has there been a time when the public discussion of large corporations is so focused on their potentially catastrophic impact on the human race. Say what you will about the tobacco industry, for instance, but no one ever suggested it threatened the survival of the species as a whole. Today such speculation is rampant when it comes to Big Tech’s creation of AI agents that may be beyond human control.
A Surprising Move by the CFPB
Most of the time, the Trump Administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appears to be a defunct agency. Yet, now and then, it stirs back to life. This may happen when the administration wants to make it an even less effective regulator. For example, over the summer the CFPB announced that it was restricting the amount of detail included in the entries in its Consumer Complaint Database.
Another Assault on Democracy
Defenders of big business have long claimed that large publicly traded companies are democratic institutions, since shareholders are able to vote on issues of corporate policy. Activist groups, in turn, have used that avenue to press for changes in harmful practices. This system, which has significant limitations, is set to become a lot less effective as the result of a rule change being proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
What Are the AI Giants Really Up to?
There is something quite bizarre about the current debate on artificial intelligence. Never before have the heads of major corporations come out with warnings that their own products could threaten the future of the human race. Such statements cannot be taken at face value. If Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk believe those catastrophic possibilities to be literally true, they would be talking about dismantling AI, not simply slowing down its progression.
Regulators and the Anti-DEI Witch Hunt
During the second Trump Administration, many federal regulatory agencies seem to think their mission is to attack Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, often under the guise of investigating companies and other institutions for the purported crime of retaining practices seen as promoting diversity. This category includes entities such as the Federal Communications Commission, whose attacks on ABC and its parent Walt Disney have been so egregious that the companies have gone to court to seek relief.
The States Hold Meta to Account
The settlement between Meta Platforms and nearly all state governments to resolve litigation concerning the harms to young people caused by its social media apps is a landmark in corporate accountability. With a potential value of more than $17 billion, it is the second largest corporate penalty of the past 25 years, surpassed only by the $20.8 billion settlement paid by BP in 2015 in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
For Once a Corporation is in the Right
The Dirt Diggers Digest is normally in the business of cheering on regulators and prosecutors as they go after rogue corporations. I tend to be skeptical of claims of government overreach made by business apologists. In the bizarro world created by the Trump Administration, I am at the moment forced to take a different stance. I find myself in the unfamiliar position of rooting for a major corporation in a dispute with a federal agency.
Trial Lawyers Outshine Federal Prosecutors
Johnson & Johnson has just agreed to pay at least $5.5 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims that its talcum powder products cause ovarian cancer. A federal court recently gave final approval to a settlement in which Anthropic will pay out $1.5 billion to authors who claimed the AI company improperly used their work to train its Claude chatbot.
The Big Retreat from Enforcement
Tech barons have long dreamed of creating a libertarian territory free of all regulation and taxation. They have not yet succeeded in that self-serving effort, but the Trump Administration is increasingly adopting policies that push the United States in that direction. One sign of that is the growing decriminalization of business misconduct.
Is the Price-Fixing Crackdown for Real?
Throughout his second term, Donald Trump has struggled to find an effective message on the issue of inflation. For a time, he tried to deny the problem existed, choosing to depict the affordability crisis as an invention of the Democrats. Then he concocted far-fetched claims such as the idea that “illegal aliens” were to blame. After his attack on Iran caused fuel and other prices to shoot up, Trump insisted the increase would last only a short time.
Trump’s Interventionist Power Trip
Dual Freq, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Donald Trump may have thought that giving a 250th Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore would help his shameless effort to have his image added to those of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Instead, what he earned is an eventual spot at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin, the final resting place of Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Presidential Capture
For many years, the U.S. regulatory system has been hampered by the excessive influence large corporations and trade associations exercise over the agencies. Critics call this regulatory capture. With its sweeping new ruling establishing the right of the president to fire agency commissioners at will, the Supreme Court has created another impediment to effective oversight of business. Let’s call it presidential capture.
Thrown Out of Court
The conservatives on the Supreme Court are fervent in the promotion of religious freedom, but they seem to be even more ardent in their efforts to protect corporate power. This is once again clear in a new ruling in a case involving tech giant Cisco Systems.
Zombie CFPB - Dirt Diggers Digest
Until recently, it appeared that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was all but defunct. Soon after Trump returned to office last year, his administration removed Rohit Chopra as director of the agency and replaced him, first, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and then with OMB Director Russell Vought. The CFPB, which had built a reputation for aggressive enforcement of predatory lending practices, was told to suspend that activity.
The ICE-ification of Financial Regulation
For more than half a century following the passage of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, financial institutions have been required to monitor certain customer transactions to thwart money laundering. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in response to the 9/11 attacks, created additional rules designed to thwart terrorist financing. Now the Trump Administration is starting to enlist banks in a more questionable form of information gathering involving the immigration status of their customers.
Reputation Be Damned
Federal bank regulators are normally concerned with getting financial institutions to reduce their risk level, but the Trump Administration has a different idea. The major agencies—the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—jointly announced they have revised key guidance documents to remove references to what is known as reputation risk.
Slush Fund Time Bomb
Among the many unorthodox features of the slush fund being created by the Justice Department is the fact that the beneficiaries are limited to the supposed victims of the Biden Administration. Nothing is being said about compensating those who have been unjustly treated during the Trump years. Calls for such payments will undoubtedly arise once Trump is out of office, given the egregious way his administration has prosecuted individuals against whom the president has political grudges.
Who Will Regulate the Prediction Markets?
A controversial new form of financial activity is on the rise, and a federal regulatory agency is aggressively asserting its oversight role. That sounds good, except for the fact that the head of the agency is a strong booster of the activity and seems mainly concerned with undercutting more aggressive state-level regulation.
The Fix is In
Conventional economics teaches that wages are determined by labor supply and demand. There is, in fact, a lot more at play—and not all of it is legal. Growing evidence has emerged of a practice that has come to be called wage fixing. This is what happens when companies in an industry coordinate compensation practices for certain jobs, making it difficult for workers attain higher earnings by switching employers.
Worms in the Apple
For years, Apple has commanded top prices based on the idea that its devices were of the highest quality. That mystique has persevered despite a series of major lawsuits alleging that the company deceived consumers about the features and performance of its products. In the latest case, Apple recently agreed to pay $250 million to resolve allegations that it misled customers into thinking its iPhone 16 would include new artificial intelligence Siri features.
Today’s Queen of Hearts
During her interview with Donald Trump, Norah O’Donnell of 60 Minutes mentioned that the man accused of trying to assassinate him had attended a No Kings rally. Trump responded: “I’m not a king…If I was a king I wouldn’t be dealing with you.” Trump’s kingliness, especially in contrast to a real monarch such as Charles, is open to debate. But it is hard to ignore Trump’s similarity to a different royal figure, namely the Queen of Hearts.
Coercive Price Fixing
In its early days, Amazon.com cultivated a reputation for low prices, which helped put a lot of small booksellers out of business. That eventually gave way to a business model based on a wide product selection and speedy delivery. Its Prime subscription system was designed to make customers focus on the benefits of free shipping and overlook the fact that the prices of the products were not much of a bargain.
Bizarro World at the Justice Department
Normally, my colleagues and I are happy to include a new multi-million-dollar penalty paid by a Fortune 100 company to the Justice Department in our Violation Tracker updates. This month, however, we are reluctantly creating an entry for a $17 million settlement reached with IBM. Our hesitation stems from the fact that the case is less a legitimate enforcement action than a salvo in the Trump Administration’s ongoing crusade against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Taking Pride in Doing Less
Regulatory agencies used to brag about how much enforcement they did. After all, that is their job. Under Trump 2.0 agencies such as the EPA and the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Fraud Section have continued this practice, even when it meant greatly exaggerating what they had actually accomplished. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is taking a very different tack: It just issued a press release boasting about cutting back on its enforcement.
Crackdown or Anomaly?
The Trump Administration leaves no doubt where it stands on street crime and drug trafficking: it supports the harshest punishments for perpetrators. When it comes to corporate crime, the stance has generally been quite different. Trump has used his pardon power to benefit a slew of convicted businesspeople, and the Justice Department is finding new ways to offer leniency to corporate defendants.
The New Senator from the Fortune 500
Parts of MAGA world are up in arms over the decision by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt to name Alan Armstrong to fill the Senate seat vacated by Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s new Secretary of Homeland Security. The fact that Armstrong made a political donation to Adam Kinzinger, who voted to impeach Trump while in Congress, is viewed as evidence he is insufficiently loyal to the president.
Environmental Gaslighting
Under Trump 2.0, the Environmental Protection Agency has gone after the nation’s pollution rules the way a hyena devours a gazelle.
Coddling Rogue Corporations
When it comes to alleged terrorists, drug cartels, so-called illegal aliens, and purported fraudulent voters, Trump’s Justice Department is quick to adopt an aggressive prosecutorial posture. The DOJ is eager to throw the book at defendants. Yet when it comes to cases involving corporate misconduct, DOJ changes from a lion to a lamb. The focus shifts to leniency and the desire to avoid putting an undue burden on companies. Restraint seems to be the primary objective.
A Neutered Financial Watchdog
Since its creation nearly a century ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been one of the country’s premier regulatory agencies, protecting investors from misconduct by large corporations and other players in financial markets. In the early 2000s the SEC investigated accounting fraud by the likes of Enron and Worldcom. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, it brought major enforcement actions against Wall Street banks for packaging and selling toxic securities.
A Golden Age for White-Collar Crime
Donald Trump had a lot to say about crime in his State of the Union speech. Most of it was untrue, including the assertion that criminality has completely disappeared in the District of Columbia, or ridiculous, especially the claim that his war on fraud supposedly rampant among immigrants would bring in enough revenue to eliminate the federal budget deficit. He had nothing to say, of course, about the crimes committed by wealthy individuals.
Migrant Intimidation Masquerading as Consumer Protection
It came as quite a surprise to see a recent Justice Department press release announcing that its Civil Rights Division had secured a $68 million settlement from a real estate developer accused of targeting Hispanic borrowers through predatory land sales.
Making America Corrupt Again
Among the many reasons why the people of Greenland would be better off sticking with Denmark rather than giving in to Donald Trump’s pressure campaign is the matter of public integrity. Transparency International (TI) has just released the latest edition of its Corruption Perceptions Index, and the country whose public sector once again ranks as the most honest in the world is the Kingdom of Denmark. On a scale of zero to 100, Denmark gets a score of 89.
Real and Fake Solutions to Inflated Drug Prices
High prescription drug prices are one of the main components of the affordability problem that continues to afflict all but the most affluent Americans. Public officials are addressing the issue, but in two very different ways. One is a gimmick that will do little good; the other is a meaningful attack on pharmaceutical abuses. On one side we have Trump’s approach, which is to create a web platform—named after himself, of course—that claims it will provide access to the lowest prices.
The DOJ’s Empty Boast
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has expended much of its energy bringing dubious cases against the president’s political foes and propping up the administration’s disastrous immigration policies. At the same time, DOJ is trying to portray itself as an aggressive prosecutor of corporate crime.
A False Claim About False Claims
When the Trump Administration issues a press release about regulation, it is usually to boast about the number of rules it is trying to abolish or to announce a reduction in a corporate penalty imposed during the Biden Administration.
Unequal Justice Unequal Justice - Dirt Diggers Digest
These are strange days at the Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi seems completely willing to do the bidding of Donald Trump, yet there have been press reports that he is unhappy she has not moved faster to prosecute his perceived political foes. The DOJ is not conducting a probe of the ICE officer who fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis, but it is investigating the political ties of the woman’s spouse.
The 2025 Corporate Rap Sheet
The regulatory enforcement system is one of the many things the second Trump Administration has thrown into chaos. The DOGE assault decimated staffing at many agencies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been all but dismantled. Regulators such as the Environmental Protection Agency are abandoning key parts of their mission. Independent agencies are losing their independence as Trump asserts a right to fire commissioners for no good reason.
SCOTUS-Style Deregulation
In another example of how the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has become all too willing to throw out well-established law, the rightwing Justices strongly signaled they are ready to overturn a 90-year-old precedent that protects members of independent government agencies from being fired for no good reason by the president.
Can Federal Corporate Investments Be Used for Good?
Donald Trump takes pleasure in getting institutions of all kinds to bend to his will. That includes major corporations. In a move that contradicts the usual deference the public sector in the U.S. shows to big business, Trump has forced a group of large companies to allow the federal government to acquire significant ownership stakes. These investments are being justified in the name of national security.
Is the DOJ Serious About Investigating Beef Price-Fixing?
Apparently shaken by the Democratic gains in this month’s elections, Donald Trump has changed his tune on the economy. He still tries to get us to believe everything is marvelous, but at the same time he has rolled out a series of proposals designed to give the impression he is addressing the affordability crisis. Most of these initiatives do not amount to much. The rollback of tariffs on some food products is easing an aspect of inflation Trump himself caused.
The Other Sins of the Big Greenhouse Gas Emitters
As the COP30 climate talks take place in Brazil, the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has just published its latest list of the corporations that contribute the most to the global warming crisis in the United States. Unfortunately, PERI warns that this version of the Greenhouse 100 Polluters Index may be its last.
Taking Aim at Whistleblowers
Everyone in the Trump Administration seems hellbent on giving the president as much power as possible over nearly everything. Congressional Republicans are playing along. Things are less clear in the courts, especially in the wake of the skeptical reception Trump’s tariffs just received in the Supreme Court. Yet there is a lower-profile judicial effort in the works that could further empower the executive branch at the expense of corporate accountability.
A New Climate Denialism?
For decades, federal and state laws have required corporations to disclose information about their activities that affect the public. ExxonMobil is now asking a federal court to allow it to ignore one of those obligations relating to the vital issue of climate change. Exxon is suing the government of California over two laws enacted in 2023 that will require large companies to provide two forms of disclosure.
Banking and Genocide
Banks try to disavow responsibility for the misconduct of their clients, but that position has suffered a serious setback in a court in New York. A federal jury has just returned what is being called a landmark verdict against French banking giant BNP Paribas for complicity in the genocide committed by the regime of Omar al-Bashir in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Exxon's Bogus Shareholder Democracy
When thinking of the leading proponents of democracy, ExxonMobil is not a name that comes to mind. Yet the oil giant is using the rhetoric of democracy to promote a plan that will actually consolidate power in the hands of Exxon’s management. The plan involves automatic voting by retail investors, a practice that was recently given a green light by the Trump Administration’s corporate-friendly Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Ellisons Prosper by Aligning with Trump
Numerous rich people are getting richer thanks to their connections to Donald Trump, but perhaps no one has gained as much as Larry Ellison and his son David. They control what is becoming one of the largest media empires the country has ever seen—and one that could very well serve as a multi-platform MAGA megaphone.
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