After months of opposition from regulators and rivals, AT&T late on Monday dropped its controversial $39bn takeover bid for T-Mobile USA, the company said. The FCC, which was against the takeover since it was announced in March, said that the bid would reduce competition and choice, and increase prices for consumers. AT&T announced it will…
The Securities and Exchange Commission late on Sunday filed securities fraud charges against six former Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) executives. The SEC court filing showed that executives had claimed that their company’s exposure from 2007 to 2008 was between $2bn and $6bn, when it was…
Online games producer Zynga late on Thursday managed to raise $1bn in its initial public offering after it priced shares at the top end of a preliminary $8.50 to $10 market range. The creator of games including “FarmVille” and “CityVille” sold 100 million shares of Class A common stock at $10 a share in the…
Brazilian federal prosecutors late on Wednesday sued US-based Chevron and rig operator Transocean for $10.6bn in damages following environmental harm alleged to have been caused by an oil leakage in early November. Prosecutors also asked the court to force the companies to shut down operations at the Frade field in Brazil until the case is…
Japanese optical equipment manufacturer Olympus has submitted long delayed earnings reports on Wednesday, only hours before a crucial deadline to avoid being removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The TSE, the world’s second largest bourse, has now removed the company from its watch list for automatic ejection. However, Olympus continues to be at risk of…
Areva, the globe’s largest supplier of nuclear fuel and services, on Tuesday said it is to suspend building work at sites including Africa, the US and France. The news comes a day after it announced it is expecting to post an operating loss of between $1.4 and $1.6bn this year. The French company also unveiled…
What Is Credit Rating?Your credit rating is influenced by all the forms of credit that you currently hold. Every time you make a payment, miss a payment, make an application for a credit card or simply close an account it is all stored on your credit file. Consumer credit files are maintained by two main…
German President Christian Wulff criticised efforts by the Group of 20 nations to contain the global financial crisis, saying they were too small in scale and had achieved little. Last month’s summit of G20 leaders in France failed to bring progress which the world urgently needed, Wulff said, citing regulation of the financial sector and…
Europe divided on Friday in a historic rift over building a fiscal union to preserve the euro, with a large majority of countries led by Germany and France agreeing to move ahead with a separate treaty, leaving Britain isolated. Twenty-three of the 27 leaders agreed to pursue tighter integration with stricter budget rules for…
The 2010 floods in Pakistan started late in July, following heavier than normal monsoon rains in Balochistan, the Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa and the Khyber; in fact the whole Indus River Basin was affected. At one stage nearly 20 percent of Pakistan’s land area was covered with water, a total of some 307,374 square miles (796,095…
