SolarReserve's $1B Crescent Dunes solar tower barely ran — taxpayers out $225M+
The first US utility-scale molten-salt solar tower, built on a $737M federal loan, leaked, idled, lost its only customer, and left the DOE $225M short.
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2,000 CASOS PUBLICADOS · ATUALIZADOS REGULARMENTE'Finanza, finanza e poi ancora finanza' — how Fila left Biella and came back Korean
The tennis brand born in Coggiola in 1911 was sold to a US fund in 2003, de-Biellized, then bought back by its own Korean licensee. Now the archive is home.
Ler o casophil&teds hid fingertip amputations on clip-on chairs — $3.5M penalty, only $200K paid
Two children lost fingertips to the MeToo chair's clamps. phil&teds never told CPSC, handed investigators a doctored sample, and paid $200,000 of a $3.5M fine.
Ler o casoFrench Connection built a global brand on 'FCUK' — then the slogan stopped working
The controversial FCUK campaign made French Connection a household name in the 1990s. By 2021, revenue had fallen to £71.5M and the company was taken private.
Ler o casoLuzu TV's host announced Messi's father dead on air — ten sponsors left and the host went
Florencia Peña announced Jorge Messi's death live on Luzu TV; within hours sponsors were walking and the platform had fired her and the producers.
Ler o casoMitsubishi Electric faked train AC inspections for 35 years, with a data program
The Nagasaki plant skipped required tests and printed plausible numbers with dedicated software that invented inspection data, from 1985 until June 2021.
Ler o casoFive buzzword papers passed peer review — physics spent a decade saying no
Two French TV hosts got five buzzword papers into physics journals — and the editors spent a decade explaining why.
Ler o casoGodfreys sold vacuums for 93 years — Amazon and the cost of living closed it in a season
Founded in the Depression, one of the world's biggest vacuum retailers. In January 2024: administration, 54 stores gone; by March, all of them.
Ler o casoA media empire built on one name: Martha Stewart's conviction cost its stock 23% in a day
A $2 billion public company was a bet on one woman's image; her conviction cost its stock 23% in a day, and it never climbed back.
Ler o casoBBC scrapped its £98m Digital Media Initiative after five years with nothing usable
The BBC gave Siemens a £79m no-bid contract, took the project in-house after 21 months of delay, then cancelled it in 2013 having written off £98.4m.
Ler o casoCazoo went public via a $7B SPAC, then reverse-split its stock twice before delisting
The UK online car retailer raised $1.6B via a SPAC to fund expansion, lost over 97% of its market value in 18 months, and was delisted from the NYSE.
Ler o casoFox removed Smollett from Empire after police called his attack a staged stunt
He reported a racist attack in January; within three weeks the police called it staged, and the studio cut his character from the season's last two episodes.
Ler o casoAlibaba Cloud's access-key bug broke its console worldwide — then the spinoff died
A defect in its access-key service's exception handler produced an incomplete whitelist and took Alibaba Cloud's control plane down for 1h41m.
Ler o casoYongcheng Coal defaulted on ¥1B while its books showed ¥46.9B cash — AAA to BB in one day
An AAA-rated state coal miner said it could not pay ¥1.03B, weeks after issuing fresh bonds. Regulators later found ¥86.1B of its reported cash did not exist.
Ler o casoKansai Electric: 75 executives took ¥360 million in gifts from a town fixer
A utility fed a local fixer no-bid nuclear work for decades; he paid back its top brass with ¥360 million in cash — and the board was kept in the dark.
Ler o casoDr Martens grew too fast after its IPO — and lost 80% of its value
Dr Martens' post-IPO rush to grow in the US created excess inventory, forced discounting, and damaged the brand. The stock lost 80% of its value.
Ler o casoBrax's five-year couple bet on Schweinsteiger and Ivanović ended with separation reports
Brax booked Schweinsteiger and Ivanović as its faces until 2027; days after separation reports it cut the deal and scrapped the already-shot campaign.
Ler o casoAmazon shelved a finished $25m film and settled Woody Allen's $68m lawsuit
Amazon ended its four-film Woody Allen deal in 2018 and shelved a completed film, then settled his $68m breach-of-contract lawsuit in 2019.
Ler o casoLK-99: the 'world-first' superconductor that was copper sulfide and iron
Two preprints claimed the first room-temperature superconductor. Three weeks of global hype later, the miracle was copper sulfide impurities and a bit of iron.
Ler o casoMegu: a Yamagata fashion chain opened six stores on debt and stopped trading
Megu, a Yamagata retailer of casual accessories for the young, stopped trading in February 2026 and entered bankruptcy prep with about ¥140 million in debts.
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