FRANKFURT (AFX) – Volkswagen AG chief executive Martin Winterkorn will seek to become the head of Scania AB’s supervisory board at the next annual general meeting of the Swedish truck manufacturer, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported citing industry sources.
VW currently holds a 34 pct stake in Scania, and the German car maker’s former chief executive Bernd Pischetsrieder still serves as the chairman of its supervisory board.
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NEW YORK (AP) – Sony Corp. said Monday it is bringing out a cheaper player for Blu-ray discs early this summer, a crucial step in its battle to make the high-definition format the replacement for DVDs.

The BDP-S300 will cost $599, yet will have the same capabilities as the $999 BDP-S1 Sony is currently selling, said Randy Waynick, senior vice president of the home products division of Sony Electronics.

Sony and Samsung Corp., which also makes a Blu-ray player, have been undersold by Toshiba Corp.’s players for the rival HD DVD format. Toshiba has a model on the market for $499.

However, sales of players for either format have been tepid, as consumers have stood back, waiting for the market to settle on one of the discs.

Most people buying high-definition discs are apparently doing so to play them on PlayStation 3 game consoles. There are two versions of the console, for $499 and $599, and Sony sold 1.8 million units last year.

‘Eighty percent of people who buy a PS3 also buy Blu-ray movies to go with it,’ Waynick told reporters at a meeting here.

‘The consumers have determined that that’s the format they are choosing to go with,’ he said, citing retail data from Nielsen VideoScan that showed Blu-ray discs outselling HD DVDs by three to one this year.

The BDP-S300 is a smaller unit than the BDP-S1, and is about the same size as a DVD player. Like the current model, it will be able to output a signal in the highest high-definition format, known as 1080p. It will also be able to play CDs, which the BDP-S1 does not.

Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, told reporters at a meeting here that by Christmas, prices for Blu-ray players should be down below $500.

Sony has previously complained that DVD players became a commodity product too soon, and that it was hard to make a profit in a market dominated by $50 units. Glasgow predicted that Blu-ray players would take the same route.

‘Over time, I think it will be just like DVD,’ he said.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

PARIS (AFX) – A Paris court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Clear Channel against JCDecaux SA over the recent attribution of an outdoor advertising and bike hire system contract by the city of Paris, which Clear Channel claims was unfairly granted to JCDecaux.

The mayor’s office, which announced the court’s ruling, said it will now proceed with the signing of the 10-year contract with JCDecaux.

The contract was awarded in January, but Clear Channel argued that not only were there ‘irregularities’ in the tender process, but also that JCDecaux’s offer was not feasible for either company.

JCDecaux has promised to pay the city 3.5 mln eur each year for the rights to manage the advertising on bus shelters and other outdoor supports, while supplying 20,600 bikes and 1,451 rental stations by the end of 2007.

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LONDON (AFX) – BG Group PLC said it is fully cooperating with the Italian authorities on the ongoing corruption investigation that involves key former and current officials in charge of the company’s 500 mln eur Brindisi gas project.

‘The investigation is still going on and no official charges have been brought (against anyone),’ a BG spokesman said.

‘We are fully cooperating with the authorities. We don’t tolerate corruption in any shape or form within the group,’ he stressed.

BG is working on the release of Franco Fazio, chairman of BG Italia and former chief executive of BG’s Brindisi LNG unit, who was arrested last week as part of the probe.

Two former managers of BG Italia, including Fabio Fontana and Yvonne Barton, were put under house arrest. Fontana left the company in 1999 and Barton in 2002.

The investigation stems from an alleged bribe of 360 mln lire paid in 1999 to allow the construction of a 8-bln-cubic-metre liquefied natural gas terminal in the Italian port of Brindisi to proceed.

BG is still keeping the target 2010 start-up timetable for the project, which faced fierce opposition from environmentalists.

It has so far invested around 200 mln eur in the project and reclaimed 80 pct of the land it needs for the terminal.

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LONDON (AFX) – Linktone Ltd said it is ready to make a formal offer for MonsterMob ‘within hours’ of MonsterMob’s EGM on Friday, provided MonsterMob shareholders vote down the LaNatro Zed SA proposal.

It added that its offer, which values each MonsterMob share at 1.31 usd, is ‘clearly superior’ to the LaNatro offer, and expects completion of the transaction (if agreed) in early May.

Linktone also said that it has agreed a mechanism to provide the ailing UK ringtone company with funding to meet its financial obligations in the period from an offer until closing.

Linktone chairman Elaine LaRoche said: ‘The Zed proposals are not an offer to shareholders but in fact will result in Zed controlling both MonsterMob and its board of directors and provide no cash or liquidity to shareholders.’

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NEW YORK (AP) – The leaders of several worldwide corporations — including General Electric Co., AB Volvo and Air France-KLM SA — called Tuesday for prompt, decisive action on climate change created by the emission of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide.

Nearly 100 companies followed a meeting at Columbia University by endorsing a formal statement to fight for clean energy and against climate change caused by people and businesses. The companies are members of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, formed in 2004 to explore issues critical to shaping public and industry policy on climate change.

‘This is an issue that requires action now but will not be solved immediately,’ said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which created the Global Roundtable.

The statement by the international business community seeks to lay out a framework for global action to mitigate the impact of human-made climate change without adversely affecting energy and economic growth, according to Sachs, who also spoke at the United Nations on Friday. The business leaders hoped that a permanent plan could be in place by 2012.

‘Climate change is an urgent problem that requires global action … in a time frame that minimizes the risk of serious human impact on the Earth’s natural systems,’ the joint statement said.

The modern age is powered largely by fossil fuels coal, oil and gas. The fossil fuel era has been a period of unprecedented economic advances, the statement noted.

‘Yet we now understand that fossil fuels — as they are currently used — increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which along with the release of other greenhouse gases warms the planet and leads to other impacts on global climate change,’ it stated.

The document calls on governments to set scientifically informed targets for reduced global emissions and concentrations of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases and to take immediate action in pursuit of those targets.

The business community wants a framework because it provides predictability. It said that generally politicians lag behind the business sector in addressing the need to reduce human-made climate change.

Alain Belda, chairman and chief executive of Alcoa, the world’s leading producer of aluminum, said addressing climate change involves ‘risks and costs.’

‘But much greater is the risk of failing to act,’ he said.

The potential recommendations must be mandatory, and the costs of de-carbonization or change over to low carbon are smaller than people fear, said Sachs. He said it cannot be successful without the participation of countries such as China, India, Australia and the United States.

China will soon replace the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide, he said.
Tomas Ericson, president of Volvo Group, North America, said that the environment has become one of the priorities of the vehicle manufacturer, along with safety and quality.

‘We feel we are part of the problem, and we feel we need to be part of the solution,’ Ericson said at the meeting.

Robert Edgar, of the National Council of Churches, a member of the Roundtable group, said everyone has the responsibility to be a steward of earth by limiting future impacts on global warming and preserving nature’s resources.

‘We feel this is a moral issue,’ Edgar said.

On Jan. 22 in Washington, D.C., chief executives of 10 major corporations urged Congress to require limits on greenhouse gases this year, contending voluntary efforts to combat climate change are inadequate.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush said that climate change needs to be addressed, but he has opposed any mandatory emission caps, arguing that industry through development of new technologies can deal with the issue.

In a January letter to Bush, the executives and leaders of four major environmental organizations said mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

China announced this month it will spend more money to research global warming, but it said it lacks the money and technology to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On Monday, the country’s environmental watchdog said it had failed to reach any of its pollution control goals for 2006.

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MADRID (AFX) – Endesa SA said its co-generation and renewables division has signed an agreement with Grupo Elecnor’s Enerfin Enervento unit to jointly develop offshore wind farms in Spain.

In a statement, Endesa said the partners will have equal stakes in the new consortium, Consorcio Eolico Marino Cabo de Trafalgar, which initially will pursue offshore wind generation along Spain’s southern coast.

Endesa estimates a total potential capacity from offshore wind farms of 3000 megawatts, a quarter of the wind power currently generated on land.

Separately, Endesa said its Denise electricity distribution research project has been approved to receive support by the Industry Ministry’s Centre for Industrial Technological Development.

Denise, a four year project with a 30 mln eur budget to research development of a new generation of electricity distribution networks, has 12 participating firms and 7 research institution members led by Endesa.
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will discuss plans with Dominica for a $80 million oil refinery on the island during his upcoming Caribbean trip, the government said.

The proposed facility would be able to process up to 10,000 barrels a day and have enough capacity for Dominica to also export refined oil, the government said in a statement Thursday.

‘The refinery will satisfy internal demand and produce a surplus for exportation from the island,’ Rodolfo Sanz, foreign vice minister for the Latin America and the Caribbean, was quoted as saying.

Venezuela, responding to recent environmental concerns that have cropped up in Dominica about the refinery, said its state oil company has conducted studies showing that there will be no environmental impact.

Chavez travels to Dominica on Friday and St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Saturday.

Chavez will also review some $150 million in cooperative projects with Dominica, including a protective marine barrier and $8 million in financing to build homes, Sanz said.

Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and his counterpart from St. Vincent, Ralph Gonsalves, will also sign agreements with Chavez pledging to propose closer cooperation between the Caribbean Community and a left-leaning bloc, known as ALBA, founded by Chavez and his Cuban ally, Fidel Castro.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The Securities and Exchange Commission has completed an investigation of Gradient Analytics Inc. and is taking no action against the research firm in a case that created a furor last year over the SEC’s subpoenaing of journalists.

Gradient and an SEC official said Wednesday that the investigation has been closed. The agency began its probe in late 2005 after online discount retailer Overstock.com Inc. accused Gradient in a lawsuit of issuing negative research reports on the company in exchange for payments from a hedge fund seeking to profit from a drop in its stock price.

Overstock Chairman and Chief Executive Patrick Byrne publicly accused Gradient and the hedge fund, Rocker Partners, of contributing to the decline of Overstock shares through biased reports as the fund was short-selling the stock.

In the course of its inquiry, the SEC subpoenaed three online financial columnists last February for telephone records, e-mails and other material related to Salt Lake City-based Overstock.

The SEC also investigated allegations by Biovail Corp., Canada’s biggest drug maker, that Gradient conspired with short sellers — using biased research reports — to drive down the price of Biovail’s stock.

Gradient made public Wednesday a letter from SEC enforcement official Marc Fagel informing Gradient’s attorneys that the investigation had been terminated without any enforcement action being recommended by the agency staff.

Fagel confirmed in a telephone interview that the inquiry had been closed. He declined to comment further.

‘We are not surprised by the SEC decision,’ Gradient’s president and CEO, Brad Forst, said in a statement. ‘We believe our business conduct has always been conducted with integrity. We cooperated fully with the SEC to demonstrate that we have nothing to hide.’

Said Byrne, the Overstock CEO: ‘We look forward to conducting our own investigation once we get discovery.’ He was referring to the process preceding trials in which the parties can obtain relevant information and documents that are potentially helpful to making their case.

Biovail, in a statement, said the SEC’s move does not affect its lawsuit in New Jersey state court against Gradient and other defendants, from whom it is seeking $4.6 billion in damages. ‘Based on the facts already known to Biovail, it remains confident in the merit of its allegations and of the ultimate success of its claims,’ the company said.

The SEC subpoenas — to Herb Greenberg of MarketWatch, Carol Remond of Dow Jones Newswires and James Cramer, writer of a column for TheStreet.com — came at a time of acute sensitivity over press freedom and government action against journalists, and from a regulatory agency with only civil powers that rarely subpoenas journalists or news organizations.

The SEC’s second subpoena to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Gradient demanded records related to its contacts with journalists.

The journalists’ employers objected to the subpoenas, and First Amendment advocates publicly criticized the SEC move.

In late February, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox took the unusual step of halting the agency’s pursuit of the subpoenas. He said SEC enforcement attorneys should have consulted him because of the sensitivity of ordering journalists to hand over records.

In April, the SEC announced a new policy on subpoenaing journalists, calling for the agency to avoid issuing subpoenas ‘that might impair the news gathering and reporting functions.’ Under the new guidelines, any subpoena issued to a journalist must be approved by the SEC’s enforcement director.

Rocker Partners wasn’t the only big investor taking a bearish short position in Overstock’s shares, but Overstock filed affidavits from three former Gradient employees alleging that Rocker asked the researchers to include ‘more negative information’ in reports on Overstock and to ‘downplay any positive facts.’ One of them also contended that some reports were withheld for a time so Rocker could make trades in the stock.

In short selling, which is legal, traders sell stock they have borrowed. They then wait for the share price to fall, buy back the shares and return the loan, pocketing the difference.

But Byrne, the Overstock CEO, alleged that his company was a victim of illegal ‘naked shorting,’ in which traders sell stock they haven’t actually borrowed in a bid to damage public companies.

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