Recent Updates
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Merrill, Goldman pressured by Cuomo on auction-rate debt
Business Law 08/21/2008Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. face increased pressure by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to settle claims they misled investors on auction-rate debt as Wachovia Corp. agreed to buy back $9 billion of the bonds. Mer...
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Execs plead guilty to illegal Musgrove donations
Business Law 08/14/2008Two businessmen involved with a failed $55 million beef plant pleaded guilty this week to illegally contributing to a past campaign by a Democrat now in a tight U.S. Senate race.Former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who is running for the seat vac...
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HP-EDS deal price at issue in court hearing
Business Law 07/23/2008A shareholder group is trying to pressure Electronic Data Systems Corp. into demanding more than the $13.2 billion that Hewlett-Packard Co. has offered for the technology services company.The group said Monday it intends to ask a judge in Collin Coun...
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Investment firms don't draw emergency loans
Business Law 07/11/2008In a sign of some improvement in the credit crisis, Wall Street firms for the first time didn't borrow from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program and commercial banks also scaled back.Investment firms didn't draw such loans for the week end...
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Appeals court: EchoStar not barred from lease deal
Business Law 07/08/2008Federal law does not bar satellite television provider EchoStar Communications Corp. from leasing a transponder to another company to transmit network signals, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday.CBS Corp.'s CBS Broadcasting subsidiary, News Corp.'s Fo...
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W.Va. Gov. seeks review of $400M DuPont case
Business Law 07/03/2008Gov. Joe Manchin wants the West Virginia Supreme Court to clarify whether DuPont has the right to be heard as it appeals $196.2 million in punitive damages, about half the amount a jury awarded in a case involving health threats from a former zinc sm...
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MBIA loses $2.4 billion on write-downs
Business Law 05/12/2008MBIA Inc. reported Monday a loss of more than $2 billion for the first quarter after taking a $3.6 billion charge for losses on derivatives, but shares of the embattled bond insurer traded as much as 10% higher.Posting its third straight quarterly lo...
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Fed to Lend $200 Billion More to Ease Market Strain
Business Law 03/11/2008Scrambling to ease the strain on the credit market, the Federal Reserve announced a $200 billion program on Tuesday that would allow financial institutions, including the nation’s major investment banks, to borrow ultra-safe Treasury money by using s...
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Sharp drop in jobs suggests US economy in recession
Business Law 03/09/2008Dangerous cracks in the nation's job market are deepening. Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force — ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or...
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A glance at the top players in Enron saga
Business Law 03/02/2008KENNETH L. LAY Birth date: April 15, 1942. Career: Former chairman and CEO. Founded Enron in 1985 when his Houston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth in Omaha, Neb., and became chairman and CEO the next year. Stepped down as CEO in February 2001 when...
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Insurer AIG Posts $5.3B Loss in 4Q
Business Law 02/29/2008American International Group Inc., the largest insurer in the U.S., lost more than $5 billion in the fourth quarter as bad credit ate into its investments, the company said Thursday.AIG has been thrust to the forefront of the credit crisis gripping f...
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Sprint posts big loss, stops dividend
Business Law 02/28/2008Sprint has lost tends of thousands of key customers to rivals such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, hurt by poor customer service and lackluster selection of handsets. The company recently hired a new chief executive, Dan Hesse, to fix its aili...