SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal judge has advanced a lawsuit against the government over its funding of overseas projects that environmental groups claim contribute to climate change.The lawsuit, filed by environmental groups and four U.S. cities, claims that the overseas projects will harm the U.S. environment because the effects of global warming will be felt at home, and seeks to require the same environmental reviews that are required for domestic projects.The Bush administration had argued last year that the ‘alleged impacts of global climate change are too remote and speculative’ to require the reviews.But in allowing the lawsuit to proceed, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White on Friday cast doubt on the administration’s assertion that disagreements remain about the connection between human activity and climate change. He also cited increased attention on the issue in the news and entertainmentmedia, including Gore’s documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth.”It would be difficult for the court to conclude that defendants have created a genuine dispute that (greenhouse gases) do not contribute to global warming,’ White wrote in his ruling.The lawsuit names two agencies — the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of the United States — that insure billions of dollars of U.S. investors’ money for foreign projects, including power plants that emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.White accepted the plaintiffs’ argument the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, can apply to the U.S.-backed projects overseas. The law requires environmental assessments of proposed domestic projects. The administration had argued that the agencies were exempt from NEPA.However, White said he did not have enough information to rule on the question of whether the projects at issue constitute a ‘major federal action’ that would significantly affect the environment — an important criteria for NEPA.The projects at issue in the lawsuit include a pipeline from Chad to Cameroon; oil and natural gas projects in Russia, Mexico, Venezuela and Indonesia; and a coal-fired power plant in China. Since the lawsuit was filed in 2002, several of the projects have gotten well under way or have been completed.Plaintiffs, which include Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, as well as Boulder, Colo., and the California cities of Oakland, Santa Monica and Arcata, claim those projects and dozens of others received more than $32 billion in financial assistance without an evaluation of their global-warming impacts at home.Ronald Shems, a Vermont attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit goes on in hopes that it can set ground rules for future overseas projects. If successful, the lawsuit also would promote transparency in NEPA, he said.Spokesmen for the two government agencies did not respond to phone messages Saturday seeking comment.Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Union steps up pressure on Smithfield
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Union activists trying to organize the world’s largest hog slaughterhouse planned to picket grocery stores in eight states this weekend, expanding a decade-long effort to mobilize workers at the massive North Carolina facility.
Protesters were set to target 22 Harris Teeter locations Saturday to urge the supermarket chain to remove from its shelves all pork produced by Smithfield Packing Co., which is owned by Smithfield Foods Inc. The protesters said they are upset with working conditions at the Smithfield-owned plant but acknowledge their efforts are part of a larger push for unionization.
‘Smithfield is not listening, so we are going to have to go after their pocketbook,’ said Leila McDowell, a spokeswoman for the Smithfield Justice Campaign, an organizing effort by the United Food and Commercial Workers International union.
The union has been pulling supermarkets into the fight, pressuring grocers to dump Smithfield products. Matthews, N.C.-based Harris Teeter has been a focus of the union’s attention, though grocer officials said the dispute rests between the union and Smithfield.
The union has been working for more than 10 years to organize the now 5,500 workers who slaughter up to 32,000 hogs daily at the Smithfield plant, located in tiny Tar Heel, N.C., about 80 miles south of Raleigh. The plant has become a rallying point among labor groups looking to make inroads to the Southern manufacturing industry.
‘Many people regard this as one of the most important, if not the most important, labor struggle going on in the United States,’ said Gene Bruskin, the Smithfield campaign director for the union. ‘Organizing in the South is really critical to the future of the region.’
Smithfield officials have repeatedly offered union organizers a vote at the Tar Heel plant, but union officials have said the plant’s atmosphere isn’t conducive to a fair vote.
Company spokesman Dennis Pittman accused union officials of trying to take away the right of workers to decide, saying the union was trying to make Smithfield a ‘poster child’ for sidestepping secret ballot votes.
‘If our employees want a union, we welcome an election at any time,’ Pittman said, adding that he had no concerns about Saturday’s protests planned in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Indiana.
Union workers have ramped up organizing efforts over the past year. The union quickly rallied behind about 1,000 workers who walked off the job in November to protest the firings of 50 workers accused of providing false personal information. The company warned between 500 and 600 other workers they could be next because of Social Security numbers, names or other personal information that couldn’t be verified.
Amid the outcry, Smithfield rehired the 50 workers and offered each employee 60 days to verify their personal information.
Both sides have been posturing ever since.
When federal agents arrested 21 people inside the plant on immigration charges, union officials accused the company of using the arrests to intimidate employees who were willing to organize. When 200 workers failed to show up that night, stalling production the next day, company officials accused the union of enflaming fear among immigrant and Hispanic workers.
Tensions between the company and the union run back more than a decade. A federal appeals court found that Smithfield meddled in two union elections held in 1993 and 1997 during which employees voted against organizing.
In a settlement reached this year, Smithfield agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages, plus interest, to workers fired as part of the dispute.
Since then, union workers have been asking supermarkets to stop selling Smithfield products. The union claims Harris Teeter meat managers have started to replace Smithfield products, but company spokeswoman Jennifer Panetta denied that the grocer has a policy to limit Smithfield pork.
In a statement, the company said ‘any issues that may arise between Smithfield, their employees and labor organizations must be resolved between and among those respective parties.’
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CSX CEO received $16.8 million in 2006
NEW YORK (AP) – Michael J. Ward, CSX Corp.’s chairman, president and chief executive, received 2006 compensation the railroad operator valued at $16.8 million, according to a company proxy statement.
Ward, 56, received a base salary of $995,833, non-equity incentive plan compensation totaling $2 million and other compensation totaling $157,587, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The other compensation included a $15,000 perquisite allowance, personal aircraft use, financial services planning, liability and life insurance and discounts at the CSX-owned resort.
Ward also received stock options and awards valued at $13.6 million.
The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives’ salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don’t include changes in the present value of pension benefits and sometimes differ from the totals released by the companies.
In January, CSX said its fourth-quarter profit rose 46 percent, due in part to pricing power and strength in shipments of coal and agricultural freight. The profit was in line with Wall Street predictions.
Ward became CSX’s chairman and chief executive in January 2003, after serving as president since 2002.
CSX shares rose 14 cents to close at $40.05 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Time Warner paid Parsons $18.4M in 2006
NEW YORK (AP) – Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media conglomerate, paid its chairman and CEO Richard Parsons compensation valued at $18.4 million in 2006, according to regulatory filing made Friday.
Parsons, who is 58 years old, received a salary of $1.5 million, bonus of $8.5 million and stock and options valued at $8 million, according to the company’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He also received other compensation of $427,174, which included transportation-related expenses of $297,872 and $100,000 in payment of fees for financial services, $8,800 in a savings plan contribution as well as $12,036 to cover life insurance costs.
Jeff Bewkes, who became chief operating officer of Time Warner at the beginning of 2006, received total compensation valued at $14.9 million. Bewkes had previously been head of the company’s networks and entertainment businesses.
Bewkes received $1.25 million in salary, $7.5 million in bonus, and stock and options valued at $6.1 million. He also received other compensation of $78,028, which included $16,512 in transportation benefits and $8,800 in savings plan contributions.
Time Warner is a giant media company whose businesses include Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable TV operator in the country after Comcast Corp.; the Warner Bros. movie and TV studio; CNN, HBO and many other cable networks; AOL, and Time Inc., a leading magazine publisher.
In 2006, the company earned $6.55 billion, or $1.55 per share, up from $2.67 billion, or 57 cents per share, a year earlier, as revenues rose 4 percent to $44.2 billion.
The Associated Press’ calculations of total pay include executives’ salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don’t include changes in the present value of pension benefits and sometimes differ from the totals released by the companies.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Experts: Take-Two coup a governance win
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – The shareholder uprising that threw out nearly the entire board of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. was a victory for investors who are fighting for new leadership at troubled companies, corporate governance experts said Friday.
The upheaval at the publisher of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and other video games culminated Thursday with the election of a new chairman, the appointment of new directors and the ouster of the CEO.
Experts marveled at the swiftness of the coup, saying it reflects the growing sense of cooperation among disgruntled shareholders looking to dispatch with embattled corporate leaders.
Grievances with a public company’s board are typically fought in drawn-out proxy battles that can be costly and frustrating even for large shareholders.
But the Take-Two revolt took less than a month to pull off.
It started earlier this month when a group of large shareholders mounted a public campaign to weed out directors they blamed for the company’s financial woes and ethical lapses. The final vote tally was revealed Thursday, shortly after the game maker’s annual meeting in New York.
‘Institutional shareholders are much more aware now, and they are much more organized — they are not acting as lone wolves anymore,’ said Eleanor Bloxham, president of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance in Westerville, Ohio. ‘And when a company has lost its way, like Take-Two obviously has, they are willing to come together and make something happen.’
A spate of corporate scandals has spurred investors to push for ways to make it easier to replace board members, but such efforts don’t always work out.
Earlier this month, for example, Hewlett-Packard Co. shareholders voted down a proposal that would have changed the company’s bylaws to allow investors to nominate directors. The proposal was pitched as a way to ensure director accountability after the boardroom spying fiasco involving former Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and several senior HP employees.
HP opposed the changes, as did some of the company’s biggest stockholders, and the measure failed.
The situation at Take-Two also had unique characteristics:
— The investor group that spearheaded the revolt controls nearly half of the company’s shares. At most public companies, even large investors usually control only a small fraction of shares.
— A former Take-Two executive carries the dubious distinction of being the first chief executive to be convicted of backdating stock options. Ryan A. Brant, the company’s former chairman and CEO, pleaded guilty in February to first-degree falsification of business records.
Still, the takeover sends a message to directors of other companies that their jobs are in jeopardy if they lose sight of their commitment to shareholders, said B. Espen Eckbo, the founding director of the Center for Corporate Governance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
The company’s underlying financial troubles have rankled investors and were major reasons behind the push for a change at the top.
Despite having a lineup of top-selling games, Take-Two, one of the world’s biggest video game publishers, lost nearly $185 million last fiscal year while rivals Activision Inc., THQ Inc. and top-selling Electronic Arts Inc. all managed to post healthy profits.
‘The pendulum is swinging in the U.S. toward more hiring and firing of directors — the board is being held to a higher standard as we go forward than ever before,’ Eckbo said. ‘Boards are literally being re-educated about what their jobs are.’
Still, Take-Two’s stock price rose more than 13 percent from last year until Thursday.
The stock lost 96 cents, or more than 4.5 percent, to close at $20.14 in Friday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on concerns that the new directors didn’t offer enough guidance on how they intend to turn the company around.
Michael Pachter, a research analyst at investment banking and brokerage firm Wedbush Morgan Securities, said he was unimpressed with the appointment of an acting CEO instead of a permanent one and the board’s lack of clarity on how to return the company to profitability.
‘I thought they would have identified someone right away,’ he said. ‘And I was a little surprised that they said they would have a strategy in 3 to 6 months. It’s probably unfair to expect that the dissident shareholder group could pull something together this fast, have a strategy ready and move on, but certainly that was the implication.’
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sanofi’s Ketek side-effect warning strengthened by European Medicines Agency
PARIS (AFX) – Sanofi-Aventis said today that the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has updated its indications for use of the group’s Ketek antibiotic, prohibiting its use for patients with a rare auto-immune disease and giving a ‘strengthened warning’ of other side effects for all patients.
In a statement, the group said EMEA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human use (CHMP) concluded that the effectiveness of Ketek has been confirmed in its approved indications in Europe.
Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restricted the prescription of Ketek to the treatment of pneumonia and no longer for less serious illnesses after it was linked to rare reports of severe liver problems, leading to several deaths.
In its statement today, Sanofi-Aventis said the strengthened EMEA warning notes the occurrence of ‘temporary visual disturbances and transient loss of consciousness… for which a bedtime intake should be considered to reduce the impact of these side effects.’
The group added that ‘severe problems with the liver have rarely been reported with Ketek but they do not occur more frequently than with other relevant antibiotic medicines.’
It said however that the medicine is now prohibited by the EMEA for use with patients with myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune disease.
Sanofi-Aventis said it ‘commits to undertake risks minimization measures by providing updated information to healthcare professionals and myasthenia gravis patient associations.’
It said Ketek is currently marketed in over 50 countries and that over 30 mln courses of treatment with the drug have been prescribed worldwide to date.
paris@afxnews.com
mrg/slj
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Vermont publisher sues over Jeep ads
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – A children’s book publisher filed a trademark suit against DaimlerChrysler, saying a new ad campaign for Jeep Patriot infringes on the trademark of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure,’ a popular series of books.
Jeep’s new ads use the tag line: ‘Choose Your Adventure.’ A spokesman for Chrysler said he was shocked the suit was filed, and that the parties had been negotiating in hopes of reaching a settlement.
Chooseco LLC, which recently began re-issuing the R.A. Montgomery books, filed the suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Burlington. In addition to the car maker, it names as defendants BBDO Detroit Inc., Organic Inc. and Marvel Entertainment Inc.
The books, which have been translated into more than 35 languages, have sold millions of copies since first published by Bantam Books. They target children 9 to 12 years old, putting readers into stories and allow them to make choices that affect the plot.
Jeep’s ad campaign not only sounds like the book titles, it is aimed at men in their 20s and 30s who grew up reading the books, according to the publisher. Jeep’s Web site has an interactive movie ‘Jeep Patriot and the Way Beyond Trail’ that Chooseco says imitates the books’ themes.
‘What we feel is that Jeep is trying to piggyback on the really positive associations of adventure and opportunity and choice that the former fans — the original fan base — had associated with `Choose Your Own Adventure,” said Shannon Gilligan, president of Waitsfield-based Chooseco.
‘They are trying to imbue the Jeep Patriot with that,’ she said.
Jason Vines, a spokesman for the Chrysler Group, maker of the Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler brands, said the company — which was served with a cease-and-desist request March 16 — had offered to link the publisher’s Web site to the Jeep site.
‘Obviously, they are looking for money,’ he said. ‘We’d offered to link our site, which gets nine katrillion times more traffic, to their site.’
He said Chrysler had expected to reach a settlement in the dispute Thursday and was surprised when the suit was filed. Gilligan said there had been no negotiations between the parties.
She said it would be nearly impossible now to stop the ad campaign, which includes magazine ads, television commercials and other advertising venues.
‘The ads are already in Rolling Stone and Newsweek. They have bought an abundance of media time in the NCAA finals. The cow’s out of the barn, as they say around here,’ she said.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Japan’s Sapporo shareholders back defenses against takeover
TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) – Sapporo Holdings shareholders have approved anti-takeover defenses proposed by the brewer as it tries to fend off a buy-out attempt by US hedge fund Steel Partners, the company said.
Sapporo said about two-thirds of its shareholders had voted for the proposed ‘poison-pill’ measures at their annual general meeting here.
Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund, Sapporo’s biggest shareholder, had urged investors to vote against the proposal.
Sapporo Holdings president Takao Murakami said the vote showed his company still had the support of its other shareholders.
‘We would like to do our best to boost our corporate value by forming a united front among members of our group,’ Murakami told reporters after the meeting.
He declined to comment on what his company would do if Steel Partners made a hostile takeover bid.
The hedge fund, which hopes to raise its stake of 18 pct in Sapporo to 66.6 pct, said in a written statement that it was disappointed by the outcome. It said the anti-takeover defenses were ‘not in the best interests of the stakeholders of the company as a whole and will adversely impact shareholder value.’
A spokeswoman for the fund said it had not yet decided on its next move.
The defense measures will enable the Sapporo board to veto takeover bids that it opposes by allowing the issue of new shares to dilute the stake of a bidder.
DaimlerChrysler to enter Indian market without local partner
MUMBAI (AFX) – German auto maker DaimlerChrysler AG has decided to venture into the Indian market alone, after talks to increase its stake in Eicher Motors Ltd seem to have failed, The Economic Times reported.
‘Currently, there are is intention to tie up with any local companies,’ a senior official at DaimlerChrysler India said, adding the company could bring its Actros range and its light and medium commercial vehicles into the country as and when it wants to expand its market presence.
The paper said DaimlerChrysler, which already holds a 3.56 pct stake in Eicher was looking to raise it further to 20 pct.
It said the talks between the companies ended after they failed to agree on price and representation on the Eicher board.
ami.shah@thomson.com
ami/ra/lam
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UK’s Straw to run Brown party leadership bid
LONDON (AFX) – Britain’s former foreign secretary Jack Straw is set to run Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown’s campaign for the governing Labour Party leadership, according to a letter from Straw made public today.
Straw told lawmakers Saturday he is in ‘absolutely no doubt’ that the long-serving chancellor is the right person to take over from Tony Blair.
Blair is due to stand down in the coming months and Brown is widely expected to succeed him. As leader of the biggest party in parliament, Brown would automatically become prime minister without a general election being called.
newsdesk@afxnews.com
afp/hjp
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