Our Business News

NEW YORK Two former hedge fund managers reaped a total of $ 70.8 million in illegal profits by tapping a “corrupt network” of Wall Street analysts, a U.S. prosecutor said at the start of an insider trading trial on Tuesday. Todd Newman, who was a portfolio manager at Diamondback Capital Management, and Anthony Chiasson, co-founder of Level Global Investors, were charged in January in a sweep dubbed “Operation Perfect Hedge” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 70 people have been charged in the government’s broad probe of Wall Street trading. Chiasson, 39, and Newman, 48, are accused of [...]

NEW YORK Two former hedge fund managers reaped $ 70.8 million in illegal profits by tapping a “corrupt network” of Wall Street analysts, a U.S. prosecutor said at the start of their insider trading trial on Tuesday. Todd Newman, who was a portfolio manager at Diamondback Capital Management, and Anthony Chiasson, who co-founded Level Global Investors, were charged in January in a sweep dubbed “Operation Perfect Hedge” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 70 people have been charged in the government’s broad Wall Street trading probe. Chiasson and Newman are accused of illegally trading ahead of computer maker [...]

Microsoft and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit are set to square off on Tuesday at a trial with strategic implications for the smartphone patent wars and which could reveal financial information the two companies usually keep under wraps. The proceeding in a Seattle federal court will determine how much of a royalty Microsoft Corp should pay Google Inc for a license to some of Motorola’s patents. Google bought Motorola for $ 12.5 billion, partly for its library of communications patents. If U.S. District Judge James Robart decides Google deserves only a small royalty, then its Motorola patents would be a weaker [...]

Microsoft and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit are set to square off on Tuesday at a trial with strategic implications for the smartphone patent wars and which could reveal financial information the two companies usually keep under wraps. The proceeding in a Seattle federal court will determine how much of a royalty Microsoft Corp should pay Google Inc for a license to some of Motorola’s patents. Google bought Motorola for $ 12.5 billion, partly for its library of communications patents. If U.S. District Judge James Robart decides Google deserves only a small royalty, then its Motorola patents would be a weaker [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Two weeks before a high-stakes trial pitting Google’s Motorola Mobility unit against Microsoft, Google made what has become a common request for a technology company fighting for billions of dollars: A public court proceeding, conducted largely in secret. Google and Microsoft, like rivals embroiled in smartphone patent wars, are eager to keep sensitive business information under wraps – in this case, the royalty deals they cut with other companies on patented technology. Microsoft asked for similar protections in a court filing late on Thursday. Such royalty rates, though, are the central issue in this trial, which begins November [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Two weeks before a high-stakes trial pitting Google’s Motorola Mobility unit against Microsoft, Google made what has become a common request for a technology company fighting for billions of dollars: A public court proceeding, conducted largely in secret. Google and Microsoft, like rivals embroiled in smartphone patent wars, are eager to keep sensitive business information under wraps – in this case, the royalty deals they cut with other companies on patented technology. Microsoft asked for similar protections in a court filing late on Thursday. Such royalty rates, though, are the central issue in this trial, which begins November [...]

LONDON Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli said on Wednesday that he and Jerome Kerviel, the Societe Generale “rogue trader”, got into trouble only because they had lost money for their employers. Adoboli, 32, was arrested on September 15, 2011, and blamed for losses of $ 2.3 billion. He is on trial in London accused of two counts of fraud and four of false accounting, which he denies. The prosecution say Adoboli traded far in excess of his risk limits, concealed his positions through fictitious bookings and lied to the back office when asked questions about his trades. Adoboli says everything [...]

NEW YORK A U.S. trial has been set for next fall in a Chevron Corp lawsuit that accuses Ecuadorean residents, their lawyers, and advisers of fraud in obtaining a $ 19 billion pollution award against the U.S. oil company. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said at a brief hearing on Thursday that the trial would begin on October 15, 2013. The battle over the pollution case has lasted for nearly two decades and is being fought in courts inside and outside the Andean country. It has escalated ever since plaintiffs from villages in the oil-rich Amazon won an [...]

ATHENS As Greece’s privatization program this month, nearly half a year behind schedule, at stake is not just the billions of euros it needs to raise, but the credibility of its commitment to reforms demanded by its creditors. Greek politicians are under intense pressure at home to resist foreign calls to sell state assets on the cheap and raise fast cash to pay down government debt. More challenging still will be efforts to use privatization as a tool to uproot corrupt business practices and restore foreign investors’ confidence in Greece. The 15-month-old Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund aims to transform [...]

NEW YORK A Michigan bank accused of misstating the quality of home loans it repackaged into mortgage-backed securities is set to go to trial on Wednesday, in a case that could affect pending lawsuits against some of Wall Street’s biggest firms. The lawsuit against Flagstar Bancorp Inc of Troy, Michigan, is one of the first to go to trial over claims that a lender misrepresented loans pooled into mortgage-backed offerings. Flagstar was sued in 2011 by bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd , which had guaranteed $ 900 million of securities and was on the hook to pay investors when the [...]