■ Crude oil
Price falls on Iraq plan
Crude oil fell for the first time in three days after the UN Security Council voted to activate a program that uses revenue from the sale of Iraq's oil to purchase humanitarian supplies. The resolution gives UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan authority to negotiate contracts for the purchase of food and medical supplies. The resolution didn't say whether oil export sales would resume to add money to the relief fund. The program sold 1.73 million barrels of Iraqi oil a day last month, according to Bloomberg estimates. Crude oil for May delivery fell US$0.21, or 0.7 percent, to US$30.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
■ Bristol-Myers
SEC inquiry expanded
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, the drugmaker that restated US$2.5 billion of sales this month, said US regulators have expanded an inquiry into the company's accounting. Bristol-Myers restated after it loaded up wholesalers with more medicine than they could sell. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which in August started a formal probe into the strategy, expanded the inquiry in December to include accounting issues related to reserves and asset sales. US prosecutors widened their probe too, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company doesn't expect any further restatement, Bristol-Myers said in the filing. The SEC has been scrutinizing more companies' books since the collapse of energy trader Enron Corp.
■ Optical fiber
Corning agrees to settle
Corning Inc, the world's biggest maker of optical fiber for telecommunications networks, agreed to pay US$300 million to settle 12,400 asbestos lawsuits stemming from a pipe-making joint venture. The settlement will reduce first-quarter results by US$200 million, Corning said in a statement. The suits, which date to the 1970s, were filed by people who say they were sickened by asbestos products and sought as much as US$500 million in damages. The agreement clears Corning, which has had seven straight quarterly net losses, from all asbestos liability. Claimants sued its Pittsburgh Corning Corp joint venture with PPG Industries Inc, forcing the venture to seek bankruptcy protection in 2000. PPG, facing 100,000 claims, agreed in May to pay US$2.7 billion. The plaintiffs claimed the asbestos in ceilings and offices where they worked made them ill. Asbestos, used until the 1970s to make building materials and fire retardant, has been tied to a rare form of lung cancer and certain respiratory ailments.
■ Utilities
Duke boosts CEO's pay
Duke Energy Corp, the biggest US utility owner, increased Chief Executive Richard Priory's pay by 23 percent last year to US$5.94 million, even as profit fell 46 percent on an energy-trading slump and lower power prices. Priory was paid US$1.19 million in salary, US$1.68 million in restricted stock awards, US$2.22 million in stock tied to shareholder return targets met in 2000 and US$850,000 in other compensation, the company said in a regulatory filing. He was paid US$4.81 million in 2001. Priory also received 408,400 stock options, which have an exercise price of US$34.41 and expire in February 2012. The options were valued at US$3.92 million at the time they were given, the filing said.
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