Supermarket giant Asda discriminated against trade union members, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Workers at a depot in Washington, Tyne and Wear, had voted against a move to bring their conditions in line with non-union workers at a similar depot.
The company was found to be in breach of trade union legislation and faces paying out £850,000 in total – up to £2,500 to each of the 340 workers
A leading US digital rights campaign group has warned against using Google software which lets people organise and find information on their computers.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the latest version of Google Desktop posed a risk to privacy.
This is because a feature in the software lets Google keep personal data on its servers for up to 30 days
Insurance giant American International Group has agreed to pay more than $1.6bn (£920m) to settle state and federal charges of accounting abuses.
Under the settlement, AIG also agreed to change the way it carries out its business to ensure proper accounting practices in the future
The internet giant Yahoo has been accused of providing China with information that led to the jailing of a second internet writer.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders claims that Yahoo released data which led to the arrest of Li Zhi.
The online writer was jailed for eight years in 2003, after posting comments that criticised official corruption
South Korea’s largest firm, Samsung, is to donate more than $825m (£473m) to charity after scandals hit the company.
The company chairman, Lee Kun-Hee, who recently returned to South Korea after a five-month overseas trip, apologised for “wrongful” previous practices.
He left the country in September after allegations of illegal donations to politicians, of which he was cleared
The chief executive of General Motors (GM) is to take a 50% pay cut to help the struggling carmaker save money.
Rick Wagoner and other executives have agreed to reduce their pay and forgo bonuses as part of radical measures aimed at improving GM’s finances.
GM is also halving its annual investor dividend – the first cut in 13 years – which will save it $565m (£323m)
Catering group Compass says an internal probe has found serious irregularities regarding work awarded to its Eurest Support Services unit by the UN.
It found “issues in relation to the behaviour of a few individuals” at the service, but did not believe they extended beyond the individuals.
Compass, which has fired some Eurest employees, is under investigation by US authorities over the contracts
Two former Bank of China managers have been charged in the US with stealing $485m (£272m) and attempting to launder the money through Las Vegas casinos.
Xu Chaofan, Xu Guojun and their wives were charged with 15 counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud, the US Justice Department said.
The two men tried to launder the Bank of China’s money through Hong Kong, Canada and the US, the department said
Microsoft’s offer to allow rivals access to its software blueprint may not be enough to prevent European Union action, the EU has warned.
The EU has threatened to fine the group 2m euros (£1.4m; $2
Leading internet search company Google has agreed to censor some of its services in China in order to satisfy Beijing’s restrictions on free speech.
Google hopes the new web address for China will boost its access to one of the world’s largest internet markets.
The company says the decision to censor content was hard, but says it has more influence if it is present in China