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Boston Consulting Group filed a lawsuit against GameStop that seeks $30 million in damages over the retailer's alleged "bad faith refusal to pay fees" owed to the consultancy under a written agreement, Retail Dive reported. More specifically, the firm said in its complaint that, starting in mid-2020, GameStop has "refused to pay significant amounts" of BCG's fees and demanded discounts "with no justification," as well as refused to continue "contractually-obligated meetings" tied to its fees. According to BCG, the consulting firm started working with GameStop in 2019, when the company was "on life support" and "[h]emorrhaging customers." The retailer's then-general counsel, Daniel Kaufman, who later became GameStop's chief transformation officer, led the relationship. BCG was brought on to "evaluate its operations and develop solutions that would enable a corporate transformation to ensure its continued viability," according to the firm. BCG said the agreed-on fee structure for its work with GameStop was based on projected profit improvements resulting from the firm's recommendations. Its work revolved around growing revenue through a video game ecosystem and manufacturer partnerships; finding cost cuts and operational improvements; driving category improvement; growing a pre-owned electronics business; pricing; and GameStop's loyalty program, among other areas of the business.

Thanks to a sudden $140 million cash infusion, officials in Broward County, Florida, recently broke ground on a high-end hotel that will have views of the Atlantic Ocean and an 11,000-square-foot spa. In New York, Dutchess County pledged $12 million for renovations of a minor league baseball stadium to meet requirements the New York Yankees set for their farm teams. And in Massachusetts, lawmakers delivered $5 million to pay off debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston, a nonprofit established to honor the late senator that has struggled financially. The three distinctly different outlays have one thing in common: Each is among the scores of projects that state and local governments across the United States are funding with federal coronavirus relief money despite having little to do with combating the pandemic, a review by The Associated Press has found. The expenditures amount to a fraction of the $350 billion made available through last year’s American Rescue Plan to help state and local governments weather the crisis. But they are examples of uses of the aid that are inconsistent with the rationale that Democrats offered for the record $1.9 trillion bill: The cash was desperately needed to save jobs, help those in distress, open schools and increase vaccinations.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, the U.S. Congress allocated $46.5 million to help struggling low-income renters stay in their homes during the pandemic. The federal Emergency Rental Assistance program was designed to be a lifeline for those who fell behind on payments as work and income streams were disrupted. But most states were initially slow to disburse the funds — to the frustration of tenants, landlords and housing advocacy groups, Bloomberg News reported. After that sluggish start, there are now signs of significant progress. More than 4.3 million payments worth $20.5 billion were allocated to households nationwide through Jan. 31, the U.S. Treasury reported this month. The aid, while late, likely played a significant role in preventing hundreds of thousands of evictions, according to a new Bloomberg Eviction Lab analysis. Each state set its own ERA guidelines, but typically households with 80% of area median income or less were eligible for about 12 months of rent. Nearly two-thirds of ERA beneficiaries last year had extremely low incomes — families who make less than a third of the median income in their area. About 40% of tenants were Black and 20% were Hispanic, according to Treasury data through Dec. 31. Since each state implemented their own programs to distribute the federal money, progress has been uneven. While North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, and California spent more than 90% of their first round of ERA money, 15 states expended less than 30% of those early funds by end of January, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a nonprofit advocacy group.

BLT Restaurant Group was quick to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan in April 2020, filing its request as soon as the aid became available as its steakhouses suffered at the start of the pandemic. After all, the company said, it did not know how long the funding, or the public health crisis that necessitated it, would last. Nearly two years later, BLT has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, in part because it hasn’t been able to repay all of the PPP money it received, Restaurant Business reported. Founded in 2004, New York-based BLT owns four restaurants under the names BLT Steak and BLT Prime and manages four others under those brands in New York, Florida, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and Hawaii. In April 2020, the company received a PPP loan of $3.3 million to help restart operations and pay employees, according to a bankruptcy petition filed March 18. But BLT said it wasn’t able to operate at anywhere near full capacity for most of the 24-week period covered by the loan. For more than 90 percent of that time, from late April to mid-October 2020, indoor dining was off limits in New York City. With its Manhattan dining rooms dark, BLT said, it was unable to meet the staffing levels required for full PPP loan forgiveness. BLT said it spent all of its PPP funds on approved expenses, including 60 percent on payroll. The Small Business Administration (SBA) approved forgiveness of about $1.9 million of BLT's loan in September 2021, leaving about $1.3 million for the company to repay — a sum that remains outstanding, according to the bankruptcy filing. BLT also owes more than $7.8 million on loans from its majority owner, JL Holdings 2002 LLC. And BLT said its federal aid troubles did not end with that first PPP loan. It filed for a second round of PPP funding in 2021 that, per SBA rules, had to adhere to the same terms as BLT’s first loan, which was made on a consolidated basis. Had BLT been able to apply for loans for its restaurants individually, it would have received $3.4 million rather than the $2 million it got in the second round of funding, according to the filing.