World Business Quick Take

■ Banking
SMBC `unfair': watchdog
The Japanese anti-monopoly watchdog may order Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) to stop its "unfair" business practice of allegedly forcing borrowers to buy financial products, reports said yesterday. SMBC, one of Japan's three major banks, made the purchase of high-risk financial products, such as yen interest-rate swaps, a condition for extending loans to small and mid-size companies, the reports said, without naming sources. Abusing the position of a lender against loan borrowers is illegal under the Japanese anti-monopoly law. The Fair Trade Commission ordered the bank to submit a report on the issue in July, and will soon meet to decide whether to issue a "recommendation to stop unfair operations," the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

■ Automobiles
BMW scandal deepens
The bribery scandal surrounding former executives of the luxury German carmaker BMW AG has continued to deepen, according to the German weekly news magazines Focus and Spiegel. During the last week, the Munich public prosecutor's office searched the offices of at least three BMW suppliers, the magazines reported in articles released on Saturday. This followed concerns that the companies paid bribes totalling at least US$500,000 to former BMW executives. Payments of the bribes could date back to 2001, a speaker of the public prosecutor's office told Focus. Spiegel reported that two employees working for the suppliers had been arrested. This brought the number being held in custody in connection with the bribery scandal to six.

■ Mining
Newmont mulls takeover
Newmont Mining Corp president Pierre Lassonde confirmed yesterday that the world's largest gold producer is considering making a rival bid for Canadian takeover target Placer Dome Inc. Vancouver-based Placer last week said its board recommended to shareholders that they reject a US$9.2 billion takeover bid by Barrick Gold Corp, calling the offer "inadequate" and "opportunistic." While Lassonde said Denver-based Newmont is thinking about making a bid for Placer, he added there was "good reason" to steer clear of the deal. "It would be fair to say that we have to at least think about it," he told Nine Network television. One reason for caution he said was that Placer's suite of assets was not totally complementary to those of Newmont.

■ Automobiles
Mitsubishi to restructure
Troubled Japanese truckmaker Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp, 85 percent owned by DaimlerChrysler AG, will restructure its domestic operations and strengthen cooperation with the German-American automaker to raise efficiency and reduce costs, a report said yesterday. Fuso -- still reeling from the effects of a massive cover-up scandal -- will bring the majority of its 36 sales subsidiaries and an engineering company under its direct control next year, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The truckmaker will also transfer its sales-financing functions to DaimlerChrysler's financing unit, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, from automaker Mitsubishi Motors Co subsidiary Auto Credit-Lease Corp, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.