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Delphi pushes back date to void contracts

By Times Staff
Published November 29, 2005

Delphi Corp., which filed for bankruptcy last month, said Monday that it's making progress in restructuring talks with General Motors Corp. and will delay an effort to reject its union contracts. Delphi, the largest U.S. auto supplier, was scheduled to ask a bankruptcy judge to void its union contracts Dec. 16. The company is pushing that back to Jan. 20. The United Auto Workers called the announcement positive but said it won't restart stalled discussions with Delphi until the company retracts a proposal that would cut hourly wages by nearly 62 percent. GM shares rose on hopes the negotiations will avert a strike.

Drug company buys biggest shareholder

American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. said Monday that it is buying its largest shareholder, privately held American BioScience Inc., for stock worth about $4.1-billion, creating a biopharmaceutical company with annual revenues of more than $500-million. The new company will be named Abraxis BioScience and will have worldwide rights to the cancer treatment Abraxane.

Royal Ahold settles suit for $1.1-billion

Royal Ahold NV, the Dutch owner of the Giant and Stop & Shop supermarket chains, agreed to pay $1.1-billion to settle a U.S. class-action lawsuit over the company's false earnings statements. It is the biggest securities class-action settlement by a European company in the United States. Ahold gets about two-thirds of its revenue from the United States.

High court to hear eBay patent case

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will take a patent case involving eBay Inc. and a small Virginia business. A federal appeals court had said that eBay's fixed-price auctions and some of its online payment methods violated a patent obtained by MercExchange in Great Falls, Va. A judge had ordered eBay to pay $29.5-million in lost licensing fees and damages. The Supreme Court will hear eBay's appeal next spring.

T-bill rates mixed

Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills were mixed in Monday's auction, with the three-month bill dipping to the lowest level in three weeks. The Treasury Department auctioned $18-billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 3.900 percent, down from 3.940 percent last week. An additional $16-billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 4.155 percent, unchanged from last week.

Correction

Tom Merritt is editor of CNET, a technology and online media site. His first name and title were omitted from a story Monday about gadgets for the holidays.

[Last modified November 29, 2005, 10:35:05]