Apple is facing a lawsuit from a Pennsylvania man whose 9-year-old daughter racked up $200 in charges buying "Zombie Toxin" and other game items on her iPod.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status, saying Garen Meguerian of Phoenixville is among many people with bill shock after children went on buying sprees in iPhone, iPad and iPod games. These games are typically free to download, but players can buy items that speed up the game.

An Associated Press story in December highlighted the issue. In many cases, it appeared that children bought items such as "Smurfberries" from "Smurfs' Village" without knowing they were spending real money. ITunes didn't ask for a password for in-game purchases if it had been entered within the previous 15 minutes for any reason. This meant that parents could download a free app, hand over their devices to their kids, and later find big charges on their iTunes accounts.

Apple reversed the charges of complaining customers. It also tightened its password policy with a software update in March. Entering the password outside an app no longer triggers a password-free period for in-app purchases, which now have a separate 15-minute timer.

Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $70 million to settle a class-action suit by investors claiming it misstated its subprime asset losses.
In an agreement filed in Manhattan, the Swiss bank said it would settle with investors who purchased United States depositary shares of the company’s stock on the New York Exchange between February 15, 2007 and April 14, 2008.

US residents who purchased Credit Suisse stock on the Swiss stock exchange during the period are also included. The settlement must be approved by the court.

Defendants had alleged that during the period in question, Credit Suisse and some of its executives, including chief executive Brady Dougan, issued “materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's business and financial results”.

Specifically, they alleged that Credit Suisse “concealed the company’s failure to write down impaired securities containing mortgage-related debt”.

In the settlement, Credit Suisse said it continued to “deny all charges of wrongdoing or liability”. However, the bank said it concluded that “further continuation of the action would be protracted and expensive”.

Toyota Motor Corp. was accused by U.S. investors of violating securities law by failing to disclose acceleration-related defects that it knew about, according to a consolidated complaint in a class-action lawsuit.

The shareholders, led by the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, said in the Oct. 4 filing in federal court in Los Angeles that internal documents show Toyota deliberately concealed unintended sudden acceleration problems in the U.S. They said the company knew about the defects as early as 2000 and “stonewalled” regulators to avoid recalls.

“As government regulators and the media began to focus on this serious safety problem in the Toyota vehicles, defendants initially denied that any unintended acceleration problem existed, despite a plethora of internal evidence to the contrary, and instead blamed driver error and media-induced publicity,” the investors said.

Toyota’s recalls related to sudden acceleration defects have erased $30 billion in market capitalization, the investors said. The Maryland pension fund seeks to represent investors who bought Toyota’s American depositary receipts from May 10, 2005, to Feb. 2, 2010.

The fund also wants to represent investors who bought the carmaker’s common stock in domestic transactions during that period as well as, through claims made under Japanese law, all investors who bought the common stock during that time, according to the complaint.