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FORTUNE — It was a humiliating moment. Congressman Edolphus Towns was upbraiding a top Johnson & Johnson executive. Certainly Towns (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has browbeaten his share of CEOs and Wall Street titans. But it’s not the sort of thing that usually happens to J&J. At this hearing in May, though, Towns laid into the health care giant. “The information I’ve seen during the course of our investigation raises questions about the integrity of the company,” he boomed. “It paints a picture of a company that is deceptive, dishonest, and has risked the health of many of our children.”

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WASHINGTON — General Electric Co. will pay $23.4 million to settle federal charges that some of its subsidiaries paid illegal kickbacks to the Iraqi government in order to win contracts under a U.N. program.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil complaint filed Tuesday in federal court that GE subsidiaries gave cash, computers, medical supplies and other goods worth $3.6 million to the Iraqi health and oil ministries from 2000 to 2003

The SEC alleged the kickbacks were in return for contracts to supply medical and water purification equipment under the United Nations’ oil-for-food program, which provided humanitarian aid to prewar Iraq.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Thursday’s $100 million settlement between Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission was a reminder that the government is going after tech’s bad boys — and Intel is likely next on the feds’ list.

According to the SEC’s complaint against Dell, Intel paid the computer maker rebates as part of a deal in which Dell agreed not use microchips manufactured by Intel’s rival AMD. We’re not talking small change: The payments totaled $4.3 billion between 2003 and 2006.

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WASHINGTON — A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems.

In the survey, commissioned by the rig’s owner, Transocean, workers said that company plans were not carried out properly and that they “often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig.”

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FORTUNE — The Ohio Attorney General’s office announced today that a class of three pension funds it represented in fraud complaints against AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) have settled with the federally-owned insurance giant for $725 million.

The statement reads in part, “The settlement resolves allegations of AIG’s wide-ranging fraud from October 1999 to April 2005 involving anti-competitive market division, accounting violations and stock price manipulation, and brings total expected recovery for AIG shareholders to over $1 billion. The settlement is subject to court approval.”

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A nutrition watchdog group is threatening to sue McDonald’s if the fast-food giant won’t stop using toys to to lure children to its Happy Meals .

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Tuesday that it has served McDonald’s notice of its intent to sue over what it says is unfair and deceptive marketing.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Top Goldman Sachs representatives — including CEO Lloyd Blankfein — attempted to deflect criticism Tuesday as they faced a blistering cross-examination from lawmakers about the firm’s role in the financial crisis.

For more than ten hours, members of a Senate panel skewered current and former executives at Wall Street’s top firm with pointed questions and criticisms in an effort to understand how Goldman had positioned itself just as the nation’s housing market started to come unraveled in 2007.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — A federal appeals court has certified the largest class-action employment lawsuit in U.S. history, in a long-standing dispute against retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over alleged gender bias in pay and promotions.

The divided 6-5 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday allows the combined, multiparty litigation to move ahead to trial, where a decision against the company could result in billions in damages. The Arkansas chain of stores has the option of appealing Monday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

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We can be sued into oblivion

Doctors’ fear of multi-million dollar lawsuits is pushing them to practice “defensive medicine.” More doctors are ordering additional tests and procedures not based on need but fear of liability.

The government estimates that cost of medical malpractice is less than 2% of overall health care spending. Industry experts say defensive medicine accounts for about 10% of health care costs, or more than $100 billion annually.

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WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to agree to a fine of more than $16 million, the largest government penalty levied against an automaker, for a four-month delay in telling federal authorities about defective gas pedals on its vehicles, a Transportation Department official said Sunday.

Toyota faces a Monday deadline to accept or contest the $16.4 million fine over evidence it knew about sticking gas pedals in September but did not issue a recall until January.

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MIAMI – A federal judge in Southern California was chosen Friday to preside over more than 200 lawsuits filed against Toyota in the aftermath of the automaker’s sudden acceleration problems, which could potentially mushroom into one of the nation’s biggest product liability cases.

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WASHINGTON – A House lawmaker said Friday that internal Toyota documents show the automaker deliberately withheld key vehicle design and testing evidence in lawsuits filed by Toyota drivers injured in crashes.

In a letter to Toyota’s top North American executive, House oversight committee Chairman Edolphus Towns accused Toyota of shielding its testing data on potential problems with Toyota vehicles.