Duke Energy Corp said it received a subpoena from a US Attorney's Office in California as part of a grand jury investigation into the manipulation of power prices during the state's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.
Charlotte-based Duke will cooperate with a request for information, the company said in a statement. The subpoena comes from the San Francisco US attorney's office, which in October got a guilty plea from Enron Corp energy trader Timothy Belden, who conspired to manipulate prices.
California has accused energy suppliers such as Duke, Dynegy Inc and Mirant Corp of idling plants and withholding power to send prices skyrocketing. Regulators are investigating industry accounting, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month formalized an inquiry into some of Duke's trades.
"No Duke debt or equity owner wants to see the company investigated for anything remotely or directly related to Enron," said Sanders Morris Harris analyst John E. Olson, who rates the shares ``accumulate'' and owns some.
"The energy marketing and trading business does not have a good track record this year of probity and good character."
Shares of Duke fell US$0.96, or 4.8 percent, to US$19 on Instinet, after the close of regular trading in New York. The stock has lost half its value this year, as US energy trading collapsed, regulators stepped up scrutiny of the industry and companies disclosed bogus trades and accounting errors.
In California, millions lost power during seven days of blackouts in 2001 when power demand outstripped supply.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained