Top Accounting and Finance News
A lower court jury in San Diego found in February 2007 that Microsoft had infringed two MP3 digital music patents and ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion. In August 2007, U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster disagreed with that jury, saying Microsoft had not violated one of the patents and had a license for the other one. The judge threw out the jury's award. That assessment was held up today.
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The Fed's agreement to convert the once high-flying investment banks into more conventional depositary institutions was Washington's latest effort to restore calm to chaotic markets. It followed frantic talks between the Bush administration and Congress to prevent the crisis from pushing the economy into severe recession.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, leading a push for a taxpayer-funded plan to contain the credit market crisis, said he would ask Congress to take action on this next week and that the Treasury was taking immediate steps in the meantime.
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The potential sale of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks, which includes the company's optical and carrier ethernet technology, caught some analysts by surprise. It's relatively small, but the unit accounts for about 14 percent of Nortel's revenue and has been showing promise with the recent launch of a new technology that lets telecom companies quadruple the capacity of their networks.
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Five years ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called credit default swaps -- complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers -- a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway to exit the business.
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While neither Ingram Micro or Dell mentioned the financial sector specifically, they were the first major technology companies to warn investors. Lehman Brothers collapsed, Merrill Lynch is being taken over, and insurer American International Group is fighting for its survival. Is more downturn on technology spending to come?
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AIG stock is tumbling. The cost of borrowing between banks surged as financing troubles piled up for AIG and the markets faced further fallout from the failure of investment bank Lehman Brothers. The insurer has "a day" to solve its problems, New York Gov. David Paterson said. A failure would result in a "catastrophic problem" for the market accordign to the Governor.
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HP will cutr 7.5 percent of its work force seeking to realize savings from its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems (EDS). HP will carry out the workforce reductions of EDS and HP employees over the next three years. Nearly half of the job reductions will take place in the United States. EDS was headquartered in Plano, Texas, near Dallas.
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As business technology becomes embedded in core organizational processes, control systems and decision support systems, it is vital that boards appreciate the material risks due to technology and understand the risk-mitigation strategy. Intensified concerns about risk management, auditing and fraud detection, and corporate governance have sensitized boards and top management teams to adopt an even more active role in the oversight of business strategy and key enterprise activities.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission will likely adopt proposals to strengthen its short-selling rule, including one that deems it fraudulent for customers to deceive broker-dealers about their intention or ability to deliver securities in time for settlement. The SEC will also move forward with a plan that would shorten the time in which traders must buy back stock if they fail to deliver a security by the settlement date.
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On a black Sunday for Wall Street, frantic attempts to find a rescuer for Lehman Brothers failed, and troubled insurer American International Group (AIG) asked the Fed for a lifeline, according to news reports. The events signal a seismic shift in Wall Street's power structure with big name investment banks biting the dust and major banks like Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase becoming the survivors.
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U.S. mobile phone companies have begun to see substantial returns from delivering data and not just voice, fueled by greater openness on their networks, industry leaders said. Executives of three of the nation's four largest mobile carriers also said they are still worried by consumer demands for unfettered freedom to use untested devices or software applications to connect to their networks.
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Lehman -- founded in 1850 by three German immigrants who traded cotton -- has garnered the most attention of all the financial sector stocks that are suffering, and the company appears to be scrambling to rebound quickly. Lehman reported a record quarterly loss of $3.9 billion, and said it would spin off distressed assets and sell a stake in its asset management business.
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Under the proposed settlement, Apple, including CEO Steve Jobs, agreed to implement certain corporate governance reforms and modify its existing process for granting and documenting stock options and other equity awards. The shareholder actions, filed in 2006, accused Apple executives and directors of breaches of fiduciary duty, corporate waste, unjust enrichment and violations of state and federal laws related to alleged stock options backdating.
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Shares of Wall Street's fourth-largest investment bank Lehman Brothers gave up some of their overnight gains as investors expressed disappointment that Lehman, whose business model and outlook face wide scrutiny, did not announce more concrete actions.
Accounting and Finance 
