Entries by ceadmin

Microsoft faces new probe

July 8, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

The US state of Massachusetts is investigating whether the software giant Microsoft has violated its anti-trust settlement with 18 other states.

Massachusetts said it would look at allegations that the company retaliated against a computer maker for promoting the rival operating system, Linux.

In a court filing, the state said that none of the allegations had been resolved and it would “move forward on an enforcement path should its investigations identify provable violations”

Woman, 102, dies after ‘eviction’

July 8, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

A 102-year-old woman who was forced to leave the care home where she had lived for nine years has died.

Winifred Humphrey had been told she must leave Bradley House in Whitstable, Kent, because the owners no longer wanted council-funded residents.

She was transferred, with 11 other residents, to another care home less than a mile away on 20 June

BP closes deal with Russia

June 26, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

LONDON, England — British oil group BP and Russia’s TNK have signed a multibillion-dollar contract to create a joint energy venture, the biggest single foreign investment deal in post-Soviet Russian history.

The agreement, signed Thursday in a joint statement by the companies, will see BP invest a total of $6.15 billion (5

Ordered to pull misleading adverts

June 25, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

The US government has ordered a drug giant to quit running a series of radio and newspaper ads that call the allergy spray Flonase a cost-effective alternative to pricey allergy pills.

The ad campaign urged allergy sufferers to ask their doctor about Flonase, a nasal spray, instead of antihistamine pills like Allegra and Zyrtec. Flonase maker GlaxoSmithKline began the ads shortly after insurance companies raised prices for the pills this spring

$355m fraud fine

June 20, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

Anglo-Swedish drug giant AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $354.9m to settle charges it defrauded the US healthcare system.

The company admitted giving free samples of cancer drugs to doctors, who then billed Medicare for the full price

Employee Assets Frozen

June 20, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

The bank accounts of a Norwich Union employee at the centre of a £1.5m fraud have been frozen.

Carol Birrell, originally from Liverpool, is one of 30 people from Merseyside named in a writ lodged at London’s High Court by Norwich Union Insurance of Surrey Street

Europe Inquiry Into Pokémon Distribution

June 20, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

The Topps Company, maker of trading cards and Bazooka bubble gum, said yesterday that the European Union Commission found that the company’s Pokémon stickers and cards might have violated antitrust laws.

The European Commission claimed that Topps’s European unit and distributors used an elaborate strategy to prevent exports from low-price to high-price countries in the European Union.

The company, which is based in New York, said that its European units were planning a full response to the commission’s claim and that it would defend its interests

Excessive Spending

June 20, 2003 /0 Comments/in /by

Dot-com boom begot obscene wealth and trouble

CALL it the privilege of wealth, AOL-style. The dot-com feeding frenzy was creating obscene riches at virtually every level of the company.

It was a simple calculus: dot-coms paid whopping fees to promote their wares on AOL