"Policyholders have every right to expect fair and honest treatment from their insurers," McCollum says. "We will continue to aggressively demand accountability and transparency from the insurance industry in Florida."

Travelers allegedly conspired with Marsh & McLennan and other brokers to create the illusion of a competitive bidding process by submitting fake bids even though the brokers had already determined which insurer would receive a particular policyholder's business, according the Florida officials.

Travelers paid "contingent commissions" to these brokers, and these commissions were not disclosed to policyholders, officials say.

The Florida Attorney General's Office, Department of Financial Services and Office of Insurance Regulation will receive a combined $1.1 million of the settlement. The money will fund a reimbursement pool for affected public entity policyholders and repay the state agencies' costs of investigation.

In addition to the financial settlement, Travelers has agreed to a consent decree and final judgment that will provide comprehensive injunctive relief, including a requirement to disclose compensation that Travelers pays to insurance brokers.

Travelers also will be required to disclose to all customers and prospective policyholders the ranges and averages of payments it made to insurance brokers on specific lines of insurance.

The consent decree and final judgment will be filed in Leon County Circuit Court this week.

Travelers has cooperated with the multistate task force and will provide assistance to the states as they continue their investigation of insurance brokers and other insurers. The company has already reimbursed a nationwide group of policyholders for overcharges and has adopted significant business reforms that govern its bidding and underwriting practices.

In addition to Florida, the following states following seven states and the District of Columbia participated in the investigation and settlement: Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The class-action lawsuit relates to the search engines running adverts from online gambling sites, which HBSS claims made them hundreds of millions of dollars even though against California law.

The case is to be heard on February 11 and will test the liability of these companies in California as HBSS is to ask the Court to further restrict their ability to advertise in the future.

'We believe these companies have been profiting from this illegal practice for more than a decade and we believe the agreement with the Government does not go far enough,' said Reed Kathrein, Lead Attorney for HHBS.

'The settlements are a great victory and a tacit admission by these online advertisers but there is still more work to do in holding these companies accountable for the harm they have done to Californians and to keep them and others from continuing these practices.

'Given the amounts the huge profits we believe they made, we believe these relatively small forfeiture penalties will not deter them or others in the future.'

Kathrein stated that the lawsuit calls for the websites to pay relief and acknowledge that the practice of advertising online casinos in the state is illegal.

The complaint also calls for disgorgement of profits earned from online advertisers, a figure that could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars and benefit education and rehabilitation efforts aimed at gambling addiction.

This latest lawsuit follows late-December’s $31.5 million settlement with the Federal Government by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft over claimed online gambling advertising infringements.

The plaintiffs, Kathleen Hanni of Napa, Calif., and Catherine Ray of Fayetteville, Ark., want courts to certify the cases as class actions covering thousands of passengers stranded on American flights when severe weather temporarily shut Dallas/Fort Worth airport on Dec. 29, 2006, forcing flights to go to other airports.

Both women's flights were diverted to Austin. The complaints allege passengers suffered hunger, thirst, illness, emotional distress and financial losses when American (AMR) failed to supply the planes with food or water, empty the toilets or let passengers off.

The complaints were filed in state courts last week in Napa and Fayetteville.

American spokesman John Hotard declined to comment on the complaints, saying he had not seen them. He noted that since December 2006, American has implemented new procedures designed to prevent recurrences. Those include a guideline limiting ground delays to four hours when possible and letting passengers deplane when it is safe to do so.

Hotard said a record number of American flights were diverted Dec. 29, 2006, because of severe thunderstorms.

"That was our largest weather disruption, ever, and we handled it the best we could," he said. "I think we have fixed the problem and lawsuits are not necessary."

The cases come amid public and congressional calls for stronger regulation of how airlines treat customers. A New York law that would penalize airlines for holding passengers on planes without food and water took effect Tuesday, and the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would force airlines to provide essential needs to stranded fliers.

"We're looking for justice for the passengers," Hanni said in an interview Monday.

After her experience, she founded Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill Of Rights.

Class actions against airlines when no crash is involved are unusual but not unprecedented. In 2001, Northwest Airlines (NWA) settled a similar class-action lawsuit by paying $7.1 million to passengers held aboard grounded planes in Detroit for up to eight hours during a January 1999 blizzard.

Aviation lawyer Jon Schneider of Boston said proving false imprisonment will be "a stretch."

"The passengers voluntarily boarded the plane," he said. "They will have to demonstrate the airline was completely unreasonable. I think the airline's response will be that they didn't do it intentionally."

Hanni's complaint says the captain told passengers American's management would not allow the plane to go to a gate. It says that after 9 hours 17 minutes, the captain declared an emergency so he could go to a gate.

During the delay, passengers received only a bag of pretzels and a cup of water, and the plane's toilets overflowed, it says.

Hanni said American later gave her a $500 coupon for a future flight. She said she hasn't used it.

Property-casualty insurer Travelers Cos. Inc. said Monday it settled a class action lawsuit for an undisclosed amount, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The lawsuit, brought by certain shareholders of the company, alleged violations of federal securities laws, saying the company failed to disclose its practice of paying brokers commissions on a contingent basis, among other things.

Additionally, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company reached an agreement with the attorneys general of Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia -- as well as the chief financial officer of Florida and the Office of Insurance Regulation of Florida -- settling their industrywide investigations into insurance placement practices.

Both settlements are subject to court approval. Travelers said the settlements will not affect its financial results. Details of the agreements were not released.

A San Diego law firm has launched a class-action suit against Rancho Cucamonga-based Basin Water Inc., alleging that it misled shareholders, causing the company's stock price to rise to inflated heights, leading to losses for investors when the stock later fell.

Basin designs and builds groundwater treatment systems.

The law firm, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, says Basin and some of its officers and directors issued false and misleading statements about the company's financial results.

In particular, Coughlin Stoia alleges that Basin concealed facts from potential investors that included commitments to sell product at unprofitable prices and increased costs for waste disposal and salt purchasing.

The complaint also says company officials knew Basin had long-term contracts that would hurt profitability and lied about the status of those contracts.

In November, the stock fell 22 percent in one day after Basin announced that it would take a $4.7 million charge to reserve money for projected losses.

Basin said at the time it was the second charge the company had taken in less than a year related to so-called legacy projects.

Also, Basin said, improvements in its accounting practices allowed the company to determine the systems will continue to operate at a loss for some time.

The company said its management earlier this year established new business processes that ensure future contracts are properly priced and that Basin can pass along price increases to customers.

Late Friday, it was announced that a Baltimore law firm had started a class action against Basin as well.

Basin officials could not reached for comment Friday. Its shares closed at $9 Friday, up 89 cents.

Former American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. loan officers want a bankruptcy judge to let them alert thousands of other ex-employees that they may be entitled to collect from the failed company for allegedly overworking and underpaying them.

Court papers filed late Friday ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to lift the shield that protects companies in Chapter 11 from lawsuits so American Home workers can be informed of their right to participate in a potential class-action lawsuit.

Those who left their jobs before American Home went under in August "may remain unaware that their employer engaged in illegal pay practices," say lawyers who filed the class action in California before American Home sought Chapter 11 protection.

Due to the bankruptcy filing, lawyers for American Home's suing loan officers need court approval to send out notices about the lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. They also need bankruptcy court approval to seek certification of class-action status for the case.

Officials of the liquidating Melville, N.Y.-based company weren't available to comment Monday.

Time could be running out for those entitled to join in the lawsuit, as a Jan. 11, 2008, claims-filing deadline looms in American Home's Chapter 11 case, according to the employee lawyers.

Plans are to file a proof of claim in the bankruptcy case on behalf of employees involved in the class action, which began in June. But if employees don't know about the class action and don't sign up, they won't be included in the bankruptcy claim.

The California class action alleges violations of federal labor law and state wage and hour laws for California, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Jersey and Washington.

Long hours without overtime were an occupational hazard for loan officers in the heyday of home lending, if the lawsuits filed against mortgage companies are any indication.

New Century Financial Corp. of Irvine, Calif., and Atlanta's HomeBanc Mortgage Co., both of which filed bankruptcy this year, also have been accused in court of violating overtime pay laws.

"What they do is hire a bunch of people and tell them you must work 60, 70, 80 hours a week and they think because these people are paid on commission basis that they are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act," said Marshall A. Adams, whose Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based firm Adams, Cassidy and Piccolo is handling the HomeBanc litigation.