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Mich. oil pipeline shut down for work before spill
Business Law Info |
2010/08/04 09:32
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Federal regulators say a company shut down a Michigan pipeline for planned maintenance hours before 911 calls about odors in the area where a massive oil spill was reported the next day. National Transportation Safety Board officials told reporters Monday that Enbridge Inc. shut down its Calhoun County oil pipeline about 6 p.m. July 25. About three hours later, calls started coming in about gas odors in the Marshall area. But NTSB officials say they can't link the shutdown to the pipeline rupture that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into a Kalamazoo River tributary. It hasn't found the cause. Federal officials say a Consumers Energy worker found oil on the ground on the morning of July 26. Enbridge says it detected the leak that day.
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Firms crack down on staffers' posts on social media sites
Business Law Info |
2010/08/02 16:01
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Domino's still has nightmares about a prank video posted on the social networking site, YouTube, that got two employees in trouble with the law and tarnished the pizza chain's reputation. The Ann Arbor-based company became an instant Internet sensation in April 2009 after one franchise employee filmed another sticking cheese inside his nose, sneezing on the food and implying it would be delivered to customers from the store they worked at in Conover, N.C. Both were fired, and the store closed several months later after sales dropped 50 percent. The two former employees were charged with contaminating food distributed to the public. Michael Setzer, 32, was found guilty and sentenced to 24 months of probation in March. Kristy Hammonds, 31, who was banned last fall from college, is still awaiting trial.
The YouTube episode "certainly was a wake-up call," Domino's spokesman Chris Brandon said. "Now we monitor (social media sites) every day. Someone on my team, it's their full-time job to monitor what's being said." The episode reflects a growing problem of workers across the country, including in Metro Detroit, who like to gossip about the workplace on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This has resulted in employers increasing sanctions against employees. This year, 21 percent of companies with 1,000 or more workers have disciplined employees for violating social networking policies, compared with 13 percent in 2008, according to a survey by Proofpoint Inc., an e-mail security company in Sunnyvale, Calif. About 9 percent have fired an employee for these violations, more than double from 4 percent two years ago. "For every case you see in the news, it's really just the tip of the iceberg," said Keith Crosley, director of market development for Proofpoint. "There are many more investigations and breaches that you never hear about." In at least one case, a worker got into trouble for a photo that seemed to have nothing to do with his job.
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Coal companies eye targeting congressional Dems
Business Law Info |
2010/07/29 13:42
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A leading Appalachian coal company is asking its counterparts to pool their money for a political offensive against Democrats in Kentucky and West Virginia. International Coal Group is calling on other mining companies to join an initiative that would take advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court decision loosening restrictions on corporate contributions to political causes. ICG Vice President Roger Nicholson said in an e-mail that he wants to target Democratic U.S. Reps. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky. The e-mail, first reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader, was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. Nicholson said the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are "fiercely anti-coal." |
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Goldman profit slides on SEC charge, revenue drops
Business Law Info |
2010/07/20 15:25
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Tuesday its second-quarter net income dropped 83 percent to $453 million as its trading revenue fell and it booked a charge for its settlement of civil fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's revenue fell short of expectations and helped send the stock market falling. Goldman followed IBM Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., which late Monday reported revenue that disappointed investors. Goldman's stock dropped $1.89 to $143.79 in morning trading. Goldman took a $550 million charge to cover the cost of the settlement with the SEC that was announced last week. Earnings were also reduced by a one-time, $600 million charge tied to a new tax on bonuses in Britain. Excluding the one-time costs, net income after payment of dividends on preferred stock came to $2.75 per share, easily topping the $2.08 analysts forecast. Analysts typically exclude one-time charges from their estimates. Revenue fell 36 percent to $8.84 billion, short of the $8.94 billion predicted by analysts. The drop in revenue that a number of companies have reported is unnerving investors, who see it as a sign that the economic recovery is stalling. Banks, however, have their own revenue issues. Goldman's trading revenue fell along with that of competitors including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. that were hit hard by the spring plunge in the stock market. The drop in their revenue is adding to investors' concerns about how new federal regulations will affect banks' ability to profit from trading operations.
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BP Sued Over Employee Stock Plan Losses After Spill
Business Law Info |
2010/06/29 13:05
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BP Plc was sued by members of its employee savings plan over losses tied to the company’s plunging stock price amid the oil leak disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has lost more than half of its market value since the April 20 explosion that caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The fire and blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that was working on a well for London-based BP killed 11 members of its crew. The lawsuit, for which the workers are seeking class- action, or group, status was filed yesterday in federal court in Chicago. “Defendants knew or should have known that investment in BP Plc equity was -- and continues to be -- an imprudent investment of the ESP’s assets due to serious mismanagement and improper business practices that resulted in catastrophic incidents of international significance, including, among others, the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” the plaintiffs claimed. Full-time, part-time, occasional and temporary employees are eligible to invest in the employee savings plan, or ESP, according to the lawsuit. Regulatory filings show that the plan held $2.45 billion worth of BP American depositary shares, or 29 percent its $8.27 billion of assets, at the end of 2009, according to the complaint. |
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At spill hearing, BP CEO says he's 'deeply sorry'
Business Law Info |
2010/06/17 13:19
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Chastened by heavy criticism from lawmakers, a grim-faced BP chief executive Tony Hayward said Thursday he was "deeply sorry" for his company's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I understand the seriousness of the situation, the frustrations and fears that continue to be voiced," he told a House investigations subcommittee. But before testifying, Hayward had to endure more than an hour of mostly unrelenting criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. "We are not small people, but we wish to get our lives back," Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the panel's chairman, told Hayward, throwing back at the oil giant comments made the day before by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg — about how BP sympathized with the "small people" of the Gulf — and Hayward's earlier remark that he wanted his "life back." In a sharp exchange, Stupak noted that over the past five years, 26 had died and 700 were injured in BP accidents — including the Gulf spill, a pipeline spill in Alaska and a refinery explosion in Texas. He asked Hayward whether the government should ban drilling by companies with such "poor safety records?" Hayward insisted that safety had always been his top priority and "that is why I am so devastated with this accident." When he became CEO, Hayward said he would focus "like a laser" on safety, a phrase he repeated on Thursday.
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