PICTURE TUBES
Firms settle price-fixing suit
Toshiba Corp agreed to pay US$13.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing makers of picture tubes used in televisions and computers of fixing prices, lawyers for direct purchasers of the products said in a court filing. Toshiba and other display-tube makers were sued in 2007 in US federal court in San Francisco on claims they operated a cartel from 1995 through 2007 to offset a drop in demand for cathode-ray tubes caused by the introduction of more advanced liquid-crystal and plasma-display technologies, the lawsuit stated. LG Electronics agreed to pay US$25 million to settle the claims, and other manufactures have agreed to settlements ranging from US$10 million to US$17 million, Guido Saveri, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in Friday’s filing.
FINANCE
Commerzbank cuts costs
The head of Germany’s Commerzbank says he is not asking for a bonus after a year of meager profits and no dividend for shareholders. The bank is cutting costs and plans to drop between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs through to 2016. Commerzbank chief executive officer Martin Blessing also gave a downbeat outlook for this year, saying it would be a year of restructuring that would cost “effort, money and time.” Blessing termed profit of only 6 million euros (US$8 million) for last year as “unsatisfactory” and told the board of directors he would not be drawing any performance-related pay. He said other executives on the top management committee would still get 40 percent of their bonuses, while managers lower down would take home more. He cited a “responsibility pyramid” in saying those with more authority should make a bigger sacrifice. His base pay for last year was 1.3 million euros.
FINANCE
McGraw-Hill downgraded
McGraw-Hill Cos, the owner of the world’s largest ratings company, was downgraded by its biggest rival after the US government filed a lawsuit that seeks as much as US$5 billion in damages.Moody’s Investors Service cut the debt rating on the New York-based parent of Standard & Poor’s by two levels to “Baa2” from “A3” and said it may reduce the grade again. The new ranking, two steps above speculative grade, takes into account the sale of McGraw-Hill’s education unit and the lawsuit filed on Feb. 4 by the US Department of Justice, Moody’s said on Thursday in a statement after the close of trading in New York. The US government has accuse Standard & Poor’s of deliberately misstating the risks of mortgage bonds, whose collapse helped trigger the credit crisis. McGraw-Hill climbed for a third day, rising 0.2 percent to US$44.95 in New York trading. The stock had lost as much as 27 percent this month, wiping out US$4.4 billion of market value.
INDIA
Helicopter deal on hold
The defense ministry said on Friday that it has put a US$750 million contract to purchase helicopters from Italian company Finmeccanica on hold amid allegations that bribes were paid to obtain it. The ministry said that a formal notice has been sent to Finmeccanica’s AgustaWestland helicopter division seeking cancellation of the contract. The company has a week to respond to the notice. The contract with AgustaWestland for the purchase of 12 helicopters was signed in February 2010. Three of the helicopters were delivered in December last year. Delhi has launched its own investigation into the 560 million euro deal after the Italian defense and aerospace giant’s chief executive was arrested in Milan on Tuesday on charges that he paid bribes to obtain the contract.
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