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H&M (Hennes & Mauritz), a major Swedish "fast fashion" retailer, led 30 international companies this week to commit to a new $3 billion fund to improve the safety of garment factories in Bangladesh. Watchdog organizations say the companies acted only because of external pressure by activists and workers.

Ranbaxy, a subsidiary of Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo, has paid a $500 million fine and pled guilty to selling adulterated drugs manufactured in India. The settlement comes 16 months after the company signed an agreement with U.S. authorities to change its ways.

Farmers in North Carolina are regretting the day that they put their trust in the Egg King - Oleg Bakhmatyuk - a billionaire agricultural investor from the Ukraine. Over 100 farmers are suing a subsidiary of his global empire for almost $10 million for reneging on chicken sales contracts.

Record fines adding up to $36 billion have been paid out in the last 12 years by multinational corporations to the U.S. government to settle charges of corruption and fraud. But are they getting away with a slap on the wrist to avoid prosecution for major crimes?

Multinationals like Benetton have tried to distance themselves from Rana Plaza, a Bangladeshi building housing five clothing factories, that collapsed last week killing over 400. Activists argue that change will only come when workers get more political support to challenge them.

A subsidiary of Arch Coal of St. Louis, Missouri, was denied permission to dump nearly three billion cubic feet of dirt into local headwater streams after blowing up a mountain in West Virginia. The object was to extract coal from a project known as the Spruce No. 1 Surface Mine.

Alstom, a French engineering company, has been accused of bribing Indonesian officials to win a lucrative contract to build coal power plans in Sumatra. Frederic Pierucci, a French employee of the company, was arrested and David Rothschild, a U.S. employee, has pled guilty.

A lawsuit against HudBay Minerals in Canada for human rights abuses in Guatemala is the next case to watch for corporate accountability activists after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a case against Shell for aiding and abetting human rights abuses in Nigeria.

In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against Shell in Nigeria for human rights abuses in the Ogoni region. The ruling effectively blocks other lawsuits against foreign multinationals for human rights abuse that have occurred overseas from being brought in U.S. courts.

For over a month, villagers in the eastern Indian state of Odisha have been conducting a sit-in to demand the withdrawal of armed police officers at the site of a proposed $12 billion steel complex to be built by Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) of South Korea.