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Business Quick Take

■BIOTECHNOLOGY

US states sue Amgen Inc

Amgen Inc, the world’s largest biotechnology company, is being sued by 15 US states after a probe into an alleged nationwide kickback scheme that aimed to boost sales, New York’s attorney-general said on Friday. Attorney-general Andrew Cuomo said Amgen and two units of AmerisourceBergen Corp offered kickbacks to physicians and others to increase sales of the anemia medicine Aranesp. The complaint charges that the companies gave free samples of Aranesp to medical providers such as physicians, then encouraged them to bill insurance companies and the government’s Medicaid program for reimbursement.



■FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Stiglitz weighs in on yuan

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said “there will have to be some adjustments in the exchange rate” between China’s yuan and the dollar. “It is very difficult to maintain fixed exchange rates in a very volatile economy for a very long period of time, which is why the world has abandoned the fixed exchange rate system,” he said in a speech in Shanghai yesterday. He said the US economy was still “nowhere near” the end of its recession and the labor market was in “very bad shape.”



■BANKING

Executives to meet with Fed

Executives of the US’ 28 largest banks will meet with Federal Reserve supervisors tomorrow to discuss the Fed’s plan to police bank pay policies, officials said on Friday. Under a plan recently put forward by the Fed, the central bank would review — and could veto — pay policies that could cause too much risk-taking by bank executives, traders or loan officers.



■INTERNET

Spam king ordered to pay

Spam king Sanford Wallace has been ordered to pay US$711 million in damages for bombarding Facebook members with unwanted messages, the social networking site said on Friday. The award was made at the San Jose District Court on Thursday, according to the announcement. Facebook said Wallace’s e-mails tricked many recipients into giving him their login information, or redirecting them to sites that paid him for each visit. It said Wallace committed 14 million violations of US anti-spam laws. In addition to the damages, Wallace was banned from accessing Facebook and slapped with a criminal contempt of court charge, which means he now faces possible jail time.



■PETROLEUM

Chevron lifted Q3 production

Chevron said on Friday it pumped its way through a weak third quarter, producing more oil as prices recovered from a severe plunge earlier in the year. The second-­largest US oil and gas producer boosted revenues by increasing oil production by 11 percent. Its average sale price for crude and natural gas liquids over the past three months was US$62 per barrel, which is better than the previous quarter, but below the US$103 it fetched during the same period last year.



■AVIATION

EVA Air narrows loss

EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan’s second-largest air carrier, reported a nine-month loss that narrowed to NT$3.9 billion (US$120 million), or NT$1.67 a share, from a loss of NT$10.5 billion, or NT$4.65 a share, a year earlier, according to a stock exchange filing on Friday. EVA posted a NT$2.22 billion third-quarter loss compared with NT$4.51 billion a year earlier, while third-quarter sales fell 22 percent from a year earlier to NT$18.7 billion.


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