Bloomberg Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay about $1 billion to resolve most lawsuits claiming it sold defective metal-on-metal hips that ultimately had to be removed, according to people with knowledge of the matter. With the agreement, J&J has now resolved more than 95 percent of the 6,000 cases in which surgeons extracted the Pinnacle implants because of defects that ...

Bloomberg Italy’s fiscal situation will worsen this year and next because a pickup in the economy won’t be strong enough to stop its debt and deficit rising, the European Commission warned. While economic “growth is likely to rebound moderately on the back of firming external demand and higher social transfers,” Italy remains “the only euro-area member state where the snowball ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG’s Porsche sportscar unit agreed to pay 535 million euros ($599 million) to end a probe into rigged diesel engines, bringing the total amount of fines in its home country to more than 2.3 billion euros. The carmaker won’t appeal the order which was levied as part of an ongoing criminal investigation targeting managers at the Porsche brand, ...