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Skilling denies cover-up at Enron

Former Enron chief Jeffrey Skilling has denied encouraging Enron workers to falsify profits at the firm.

In his second day of giving evidence at a trial in Houston he added prosecution witnesses had lied when they said he was part of such a cover-up.

“Did you ever have a single conversation where you sat down with anyone at Enron where you said in so many words, ‘Look we’re not cutting it, we need to break the law?'” Mr Skilling’s defence lawyer asked

Misconduct fine for Deutsche Bank

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Deutsche Bank £6.3m (9.2m euros; $11

Royal Liver fined for mis-selling

Insurer Royal Liver has been fined £550,000 (US$1m) for mis-selling with-profits policies by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The firm was found to have sold policies to customers who had no “demonstrable” need for them.

As a result of the mis-selling policyholders were exposed to too much investment risk, the FSA added

Swedish politicians sue Ryanair

The Swedish prime minister and former foreign minister are suing budget airline Ryanair over an advertisement that appears to mock them.

The advert for low-cost flights shows an unflattering picture of the two with the slogan “Time to flee the country?”

Goran Persson and Leila Freivalds are seeking 75,000 kronor (£5,600) in damages from the Ireland-based airline.

A spokeswoman for Ryanair in Sweden said the lawsuit was a waste of taxpayers’ money

Norton settles price fixing claim

Healthcare giant Norton has become the third company to agree a multi-million pound settlement with the British National Health Service (NHS) to end a claim for alleged price fixing.

Under the terms of its agreement, US-based Norton does not accept any liability but will pay the British NHS a total of USD$24m (GBP£13.5m) compensation

Glaxo agrees US Paxil settlement

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has agreed to pay $14m (£8m) to settle US claims that it fraudulently tried to delay competitors to anti-depressant drug Paxil.

It agreed the deal with Eliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General, who brought the case on behalf of 49 states.

GSK was accused of using frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits against generic producers of Paxil, keeping the drug’s cost higher than necessary

Recycler fined for abusing market

Tomra, a Norwegian supplier of vending machines for bottle recycling, has been fined 24m euro ($28.8m; £16m) for illegally preventing competition.

The European Commission said the fine – equivalent to 7% of the firm’s 2005 turnover – was the largest it had ever issued in terms of share of revenues

Zurich settles bid-rigging charge

Zurich Financial Services has agreed to pay $153m (£88m) to settle insurance bid-rigging charges by three US states.

The agreements with New York, Illinois and Connecticut bring to about $325m in such settlements it has made in the US.

Zurich was accused of conspiring with other insurers to fix prices for certain policies

Capita boss quits over Tony Blair loan

The chairman of outsourcing firm Capita is stepping down over “spurious” claims his £1m loan to Labour resulted in the group getting government contracts.

Rod Aldridge, one of 12 donors who lent the party almost £14m in total before the last election, said he did “not want this misconception to continue”.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said the political funding system had to be reformed to increase “transparency”

Samsung men ‘admit’ price fixing

Three executives at Samsung Electronics have agreed to plead guilty on charges of conspiring to fix the price of computer memory chips.

The three men each agreed to serve terms of between seven and eight months in prison and to each pay a fine of $250,000 (£143,000).

The long-running US government probe has resulted in more than $731m in fines against 12 people and four firms