March Madness is pounding its way down basketball courts with a second weekend of big games commencing today, and while some employers embrace it as an engagement tool and way to build company camaraderie, labor lawyer D. Albert Brannen warns that -- much like the round-ballers playing defense -- employers shouldn’t let their guard down.

ATLANTA — Pets, paint and credit figured prominently at the True Value Spring Market here.

An Ace Hardware store that burned down in an Atlanta suburb is being inundated with offers of help and free meals from local citizens and businesses, according to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Home Depot will invest $157 million (MXN $2 billion) to enlarge its presence in Mexico in 2013, according to a news report in Economista. Part of the funds will be used to buy land for new stores, which will total 100 by the end of 2012.

Home Depot Mexico chairman Ricardo Saldivar told Economista that the Atlanta-based retailer hopes to double its current number of units in the future, which sets its goal at 200 stores.

Newell Rubbermaid, the Atlanta-based company that recently reorganized its myriad brands into six business units, down from nine, gave investors insights into how those units have performed.

The six business units in the streamlined structure are home solutions, writing, tools, commercial products, baby and parenting, and specialty.

Unusually severe storms like Hurricane Sandy can result in unusual working arrangements that raise out-of-the-ordinary wage and hour questions.

Suppose employees volunteer to perform recovery services for employers. That may sound nice, but “the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not permit employees to volunteer unpaid time to the employer under any but the narrowest of circumstances,” Lawrence McGoldrick, an attorney with Fisher & Phillips in Atlanta, told SHRM Online.

Home Depot executives, in two published interviews, discussed the Atlanta retailer’s views on expansion south of the U.S. border and beyond.

Ricardo Saldivar, chairman Home Depot Mexico, told El Financiero that the Mexican division expects to end this year with 100 stores in 58 cities. Currently there are 94 stores in Mexico. More than nine out of 10 Home Depot store openings take place in Mexico, Saldivar said.

Home Depot has reached an agreement with 360Buy.com, one of China’s biggest Internet retailers, to launch its own Chinese e-commerce sales effort, according to an article in the Morning Whistle.

BlueLinx Holdings, the Atlanta-based distributor of building materials, announced in an Aug. 10 Securities and Exchange [SEC] filing that board member Robert Warden has submitted his resignation, effective Aug. 6.

The reason given was that Warden has also resigned from Cerberus ABP Investor, the largest stockholder of BlueLinx Holdings. Warden was a managing director at Cerberus.