Corporate Apologia
Image Source: Anthony Quintano from Honolulu, HI, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Use the table below to browse the archive. Click a column heading to sort the entries, or click a linked name to open the full case page.
| Accused | Accusation | Year of Apologia |
|---|---|---|
| AT&T | Power outage in New York City | 1991 |
| Bernard Madoff | Ponzi scheme with investors | 2009 |
| Dow Chemical Company | Developing napalm during Vietnam | 1968 |
| Jack in the Box | E-coli deaths resulting from contaminated meat | 1993 |
| JetBlue Airways | Grounding of flights for six days due to ice storm at JFK | 2007 |
| Toyota | Recall of automobiles | 2010 |
| Exxon | Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound that caused irreparable environmental damage. | 1989 |
| New York Times | False information about ACORN | 2010 |
| Domino's Pizza | Employees contaminating pizza in YouTube video | 2009 |
| Starbucks | Employees charged 9/11 rescue workers for water | 2001 |
| Johnson & Johnson | Cyanide poisoning in Tylenol Extra-Strength capsules killed 7 Chicagoans. | 1982 |
| Union Carbide | Gas leak in Bhopal, India, that killed 19,000 and affected 500,000 more | 1984 |
| Walmart | Website recommends that buyers of the Planet of the Apes video might also be interested in a Martin Luther King Jr. video | 2006 |
| Michael Lynton, CEO, Sony Entertainment | Caving to North Korean demands to stop the release of the film The Interview | 2015 |
| Scott Rudin and Amy Pascal, Sony Pictures | Sony hack released emails attacking Angelina Jolie | 2014 |
| Samsung | Samsung Galaxy Note 7 batteries overheating and catching on fire | 2017 |
| Applebee's | Serving alcohol to 15-month-old in an apple juice cup. | 2011 |
| Netflix | Splitting up Netflix combined streaming/DVD mail package and charging separately for each | 2011 |
| Taco Bell | Lawsuit claiming that Taco Bell's beef is only 36% real beef | 2011 |
| Las Vegas Motor Speedway | Unsafe track conditions at Las Vegas Motor Speedway that resulted in crash and death of Dan Wheldon | 2011 |
| Best Buy | Overcharging for bottled water after Hurricane Harvey hits Houston | 2017 |
| Equifax | Cybersecurity breach that exposed personal data of 143 million Americans | 2017 |
| Harvey Weinstein | Sexually harassing women for nearly three decades. | 2017 |
| MoviePass | Outage of its service from lack of funds | 2018 |
| Salt City Tattoo | "Rape Kit" as white elephant gift at Christmas Party | 2017 |
| The Mayo Clinic | For its founder desecrating the body of Native American "Cut Nose" | 2018 |
| Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom | Security breaches in Zoom video conferencing platform | 2020 |
| McDonald’s (China) | Posting a sign disallowing black people from entering restaurant | 2020 |
| Kentucky Fried Chicken (United Kingdom) | Chicken shortage in the U.K. due to a change in its supplier. | 2018 |
| hatWRKS | Selling patches with a yellow Star of David and the text "not vaccinated" following push for Covid-19 vaccinations | 2021 |
| St. Johns County School District | Digitally altering yearbook photos to make girls more modestly dressed | 2021 |
| Chung Yong-jin | Starbucks Korea promoted a politically insensitive tumbler | 2026 |
| PepsiCo | Dangerous conditions during the filming of a Pepsi commercial led to Michael Jackson's hair starting on fire. | 2009 |
| Mark Zuckerberg | Facebook data breach | 2018 |
| Lululemon | Promotional event on the Great Wall of China featured a traditional Japanese drum. | 2026 |
| Charles Henderson – American Diabetes Association | Removing physicians from a scientific convention after they distributed an editorial that was critical of President Donald Trump. | 2026 |
| Oscar Munoz | Forcible removal of passenger on United Airlines flight. | 2017 |
| Pepsi | Promotional Threads post made light of sexual assault. | 2026 |
| Hilton/Hampton Inn | Hampton Inn in Minnesota denied reservations for government ICE agents. | 2026 |
| Taylor Farms/Taylor Fresh Foods | Contaminated lettuce caused diarrhea outbreak. | 2026 |
| Frida Baby | Sexually explicit advertising for baby products. | 2026 |
| Chip Wilson, Lululemon | Saying that some women's bodies don't work with his clothing line. | 2013 |
| eBay | Cyberstalking and harassment campaign directed at Ina and David Steiner, husband-and-wife publishers of an independent newsletter covering e-commerce companies. | 2024 |
| Apple | Intentionally building iPhones to slow down over time. | 2017 |
| Travis Kalanick, Uber | Arguing with Uber driver Fawzi Kamel about lowering of fares. | 2017 |
| Jeffrey Skilling, Enron | The energy company's off-balance-sheet partnerships, conflicts of interest, hidden debt, and the accuracy of information provided to investors | 2002 |
| David Glass – Walmart | Wal-Mart's decision to mark foreign goods as "Made in America" | 1992 |
| John Stumpf, Wells Fargo | Wells Fargo employees had opened roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts and applied for approximately 565,000 credit card accounts that had not been authorized by consumers. | 2016 |
| Gerry Cahill, Carnival Cruise Lines | A 2013 engine-room fire disabled the Carnival Triumph, stranding more than 3,100 passengers in difficult conditions. | 2013 |
| Martin Shkreli, Turing Pharmaceuticals | His company,Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired a decades-old drug and raised its price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. | 2018 |
| Harvard Medical School | Cedric Lodge, the former manager of the school's morgue, had stolen human remains from cadavers donated through Harvard's Anatomical Gift Program and participated in selling and transporting those remains across state lines. | 2026 |
| Target | Selling a children's Halloween costume that critics said evoked blackface, racist minstrel-show imagery, and Jim Crow-era caricatures of Black people. | 2026 |
| Intel Corporation | A mathematical defect was publicly identified in early Pentium microprocessors. | 1994 |
| Tony Hayward, BP | Explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and leaked four million barrels of oil. | 2010 |
| Six Flags Magic Mountain | Faced a wrongful-death lawsuit after 22-year-old Christopher Hawley suffered a catastrophic brain injury following a June 23, 2022 ride on the X2 roller coaster at the Valencia, California amusement park. | 2023 |
| Tesco | Testing by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland found horse DNA in frozen beef burgers sold by several retailers in Ireland and the United Kingdom. | 2013 |
| Arby’s | A 14-year-old customer discovered part of an employee's severed finger in a junior roast beef sandwich purchased from an Arby's restaurant in Jackson, Michigan. | 2012 |
| Sears Auto Centers | Employees at its automobile repair centers were systematically recommending or performing repairs that customers did not need. | 1992 |
| Billy McFarland, Fyre Media | Collapse of the 2017 Fyre Festival, a heavily promoted luxury music festival, where guests encountered unfinished infrastructure, disaster-relief tents, inadequate food, logistical problems, and canceled performances. | 2022 |
| Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch | Partnering with a transgender spokesperson. | 2023 |
| Balenciaga | Two separate advertising campaigns that critics said associated children with disturbing sexual imagery. | 2022 |
| Donald Keough, Coca-Cola | Replaced the formula of its flagship soft drink with a reformulated version that quickly became known as “New Coke.” The decision triggered an unexpectedly intense consumer backlash. | 1985 |
| The Rockmore Company | Discharging human waste into Massachusetts coastal waters. | 2010 |
| Schwan Foods | Salmonella poisoning in ice cream. | 1994 |
| USAir / US Airways | Flight 427 crashed near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, on September 8, 1994, killing all 132 people aboard. Investigators spent years examining whether the loss of control resulted from pilot action, a wake-vortex encounter, or a malfunction in the Boeing 737 rudder system. | 1997 |
| Ford Motor Company / Bridgestone-Firestone | Recall of 6.5 million tires after many fatal accidents caused by treads coming off. | 2000 |