RENEE MONTAGNE, host: NPR's business news starts with Home Depot's supply chain.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Federal officials are investigating allegations that the country's largest home improvement chain, Home Depot, has been supplying Chinese-made products and other foreign goods to customers in the U.S. government. This would violate the Buy American Act, a 1933 law that requires all materials used for public construction projects to originate in the U.S.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: News of the investigation comes from the Associated Press, which adds that several other retailers, including Staples and Office Depot, have in the past few years paid multimillion dollar fines to settle claims of violating that law.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Big banks are probably not too happy this morning. Over the weekend, international regulators meeting in Switzerland proposed raising the amount of capital that major banks must hold in reserve in order to remain stable in case of a crisis.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: The proposal to increase those capital cushions comes from the Bank for International Settlements, which is an umbrella organization for the world's big central banks. The rules are aimed at banks considered too big to fail.
Federal officials are investigating allegations that Home Depot has been supplying Chinese-made products to customers in the U.S. government in violation of the Buy American Act. And, international regulators meeting in Switzerland have proposed raising the amount of capital that major banks must hold in reserve, in order to remain stable in case of a crisis.