While some mom-and-pop businesses waited in vain for their share of a federal bailout, a 700-person biotech firm that recently paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to the Justice Department was approved for one.
A steel fabricator with 795 employees was too. So was a telecommunications company that has 1,270 workers, 700 of them based in the U.S.
The Paycheck Protection Program, touted as a Covid-19 lifeline for businesses with fewer than 500 workers, provided tens of millions of dollars in loans to firms with far larger payrolls than that, according to disclosures filed by publicly traded firms that received the aid. ...