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November 18, 2005
name='1'>Veto
Threat as Senators Approve Pension Bill
The Senate passed a
bill
yesterday aimed at strengthening the nation’s troubled system of
company pension
plans. But the White House called the measure inadequate and warned
that President
Bush was likely to veto it if it remained in its current form, the
New York
Times reported today. The White House raised numerous objections
to these
measures, saying they had too many built-in delays and did not go far
enough
to close loopholes.
href='http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051117/ZNYT01…'>Read
the full story.
id='2'>Bankruptcy
Filings in Massachusetts Drop 96 Percent Following Federal Law
Change
Weekly personal
bankruptcy
filings in Massachusetts dropped by 96 percent in the four weeks after
tougher
federal bankruptcy laws took effect, according to a study compiled by
the Warren
Group, providers of real estate and financial data throughout New
England, Business
Wire reported yesterday. There were 22,000 bankruptcy filings in 2005
through
the week before the federal law took effect on Oct. 17, for an average
of 537
per week. In the four weeks following the rule change, an average of
19 new
cases were filed per week.
id='3'>GM’s
Wagoner Denies Bankruptcy Speculation
General Motors Corp. Chairman Rick Wagoner told employees yesterday
that
speculation about a GM bankruptcy is "just plain wrong"
and that
the automaker has no intention of filing for chapter 11, the
Detroit News
reported yesterday. In a response to rumors swirling on Wall Street,
Wagoner
told GM’s worldwide workforce that GM’s balance sheet
remains strong despite
more than $4 billion in losses this year in North America. If a
strike were
to occur at Delphi, GM’s assembly plants would be almost
instantly crippled
by a lack of critical parts. A Delphi-related shutdown at GM would
force the
automaker to tap into the $19 billion in cash it has on hand. The
investment
firm UBS Securities estimates that GM would run through its cash
hoard in
10 weeks.
href='http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0511/17/gm-385555.htm'>Read
more.
Meanwhile, the auto manufacturer could
href='http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/18/news/fortune500/gm_closings/index.htm'>detail
up to four assembly plants that would be closed as well as well
as shutting
some stamping operations and eliminating shifts at other plants
across the
country. GM announced broad plans in June to trim 25,000 out of
111,000 union-represented
jobs at its U.S. plants, although its contract with the United Auto
Workers
union includes pay guarantees that essentially stops it from cutting
jobs
until the current labor pact expires in September 2007.
In other news, CNN commented yesterday that
href='http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/17/news/fortune500/gm_woes/index.htm'>GM
is getting hit by bad news from all directions. Some of the
problems,
such as gasoline prices, issues at its former parts unit, Delphi and
accounting
questions, may be short-term. Others, such as health care and
pension costs,
are long-term and seem intractable. Together it all adds up to a
“perfect
storm” for the automaker, battering its financial results, its
debt
rating and GM stock, which hit an 18-year low Wednesday.
id='4'>Oversight
Board Outlines Ways NYRA Could Avoid Bankruptcy
A board overseeing
the New
York Racing Association (NYRA) wants the organization to raise the
percentage
of money it keeps from bettors and to renegotiate simulcasting
agreements in
an attempt to avoid bankruptcy, the Thoroughbred Times reported
today.
The suggestions were among several offered to NYRA in a letter dated
Nov. 17
from board Chairman Carole Stone to NYRA CEO Charles Hayward. The
oversight
board suggested NYRA resolve outstanding lawsuits to get timely cash
settlements,
seek deferment of National Thoroughbred Racing Association dues for a
year and
cut costs where it can to keep operations running without seeking
bankruptcy
protection.
href='http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/todaysnews/newsview.asp?recno=59007&su…'>Read
more.
Asbestos
Asbestos
Study Criticized at Senate Hearing
A study that said a
proposed
$140 billion asbestos victims’ compensation fund would quickly
run out of money
came in for criticism at a U.S. Senate hearing yesterday, Reuters
reported.
An economist and a medical director who have worked on asbestos issues
questioned
the analysis by Bates White, a Washington, D.C., economic consulting
firm. Several
senators said that questions about the proposed fund’s viability
had to be resolved
before the Senate takes up a bill to establish the compensation plan.
The analysis
by Bates White released in September said that the proposed fund would
face
claims of between $301 billion and $561 billion and go broke within
three years.
In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in August the
long-term
costs of the fund at between $120 billion and $150 billion.
href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=24654%2B18…'>Read
more.
id='6'>U.S.
Lawyers to Take Up South African Asbestos Cases
The firm
SimmonsCooper LLC,
headquartered in Chicago, Ill., is talking to the South African Law
Society
to seek out and represent victims of asbestos exposure in South
Africa, Johannesburg
Business Day reported yesterday. SimmonsCooper partner Jeff Cooper
said
that in the States, his firm was able to dig through corporate
documents to
identify companies that had hidden the dangers of asbestos in their
products
or had not made the dangers public. Miners and their families living
in proximity
to the mines have contracted the disease, but there are victims in
other industries.
The environmental affairs and tourism department is taking steps to
ban asbestos
use in South Africa.
href='http://allafrica.com/stories/200511170211.html'>Read
more.
id='7'>Six-figure
Asbestos Compensation for U.K. Family
A six figure
compensation sum
has been awarded to the family of Philip Gibbon, who died in January
2005 as
a result of mesothelioma, reports Thompsons Solicitors, a firm
headquartered
in London with offices all over the United Kingdom. Gibbon developed
the disease
while working as a shop fitter and joiner for William Nicholson &
Son (Leeds)
Limited and William Nicholson and Son Limited between 1966-74.
href='http://www.thompsons.law.co.uk/ntext/rel.php?id=140'>Read
the full release here.
id='8'>Jury
Finds Chrysotile Asbestos Causes Rare Peritoneal
Mesothelioma
A San Francisco
jury awarded
more $1.9 million to a 71–year–old retired sheet metal
worker, Genaro
Garcia, who developed peritoneal mesothelioma from his prior
on–the–job
exposure to asbestos, PRWeb said in a press release today. The
defendant, Duro
Dyne Corp., is a former manufacturer and distributor of
asbestos–containing
flex HVAC duct connectors and duct sealer used for sheet metal duct
connections.
Mr. Garcia learned that he had peritoneal mesothelioma in late 2002.
The verdict
against Duro Dyne Corporation consisted of $325,369 for past and
future medical
expenses, $530,250 for lost earning capacity, and $1.05 million in
non-economic
damages.
href='http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/11/prweb312315.htm'>Read
the full release.
Diocese
id='9'>Sexual
Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Archmere, Diocese of Wilmington
A U.S. Navy officer
filed
a lawsuit today against Archmere Academy and the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Wilmington,
Del., claiming that he was sexually molested while he was an Archmere
student
in the 1980s, the Delaware News Journal reported yesterday. The
lawsuit
was filed in U.S. District Court in Wilmington and demands at least
$75,000
in damages from Smith, Archmere Academy Inc., the Catholic Diocese of
Wilmington
and the Rev. Michael A. Saltarelli, the bishop of Wilmington. The
religious
order that serves Archmere, the Norbertine Fathers, was not sued.
href='http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051117/NEWS/…'>Read
more.
id='10'>Maine
Diocese Settles with Mother of Abuse Victim
A Boothbay Harbor,
Maine,
woman who claimed that she suffered harm because a Roman Catholic
priest molested
her son agreed to a settlement of her lawsuit on Wednesday, the
Portland
Press Herald reported yesterday. The amount of the settlement was
described
as "small" by a family spokesman, and is not being revealed
by either
side. Still, advocates for victims of abuse call the case a victory.
They say
it recognizes that the damage caused by sexual molestation of children
is felt
by whole families—not just the victims.
href='http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/051117settle.shtml'>Read
more.
Airlines
id='11'>Delta
Tries to Break Pilots’ Contract
A federal
bankruptcy judge
in New York begins hearing witness testimony today in Delta Air
Lines’ bid to
break its contract with the pilots union to keep the carrier afloat,
the Associated
Press reported yesterday. During contentious opening statements
yesterday, Delta
attorney Jack Gallagher said that the airline’s future is bleak
unless it’s
able to bring down costs. The pilots took a 32 percent pay cut last
year, and
they say that an additional 19-percent cut, plus a loss of pension
contributions,
would be too much. They’re threatening to strike. About a dozen
Delta pilots
in uniform were in the packed courtroom. Some will testify at the
hearing.
id='12'>United
Projects a Profitable Future
United Airlines (UAL)
planes
rumble down the runway some 3,400 times a day, gather speed and then
lift off
into a smooth ascent. Now, after three years in bankruptcy protection,
UAL Corp.
is counting on doing the same, the New York Times reported
yesterday.
During the next five years, it says that its revenues and profits will
rise
in a steady stair-step fashion, a pattern that would certainly be
attractive
to investors. But it seems at odds with an industry so vulnerable to
everything
from terrorism and fuel prices to labor unrest and low-cost
competitors, not
to mention normal economic ups and downs.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/business/18united.html?pagewanted=pri…'>
Read more.
id='13'>Judge
Won’t Rule on Morgan Stanley’s Fate
Citing a pending
appeal, a
judge declined to rule on whether the investment firm Morgan Stanley
and several
executives should be held in criminal contempt for allegedly
withholding e-mails
and misrepresenting facts during trial of a lawsuit from financier Ron
Perelman,
the Associated Press reported yesterday. Perelman, the billionaire
chairman
of Revlon Inc., sued Morgan Stanley, contending that the firm covered
up the
faltering finances of Sunbeam Corp. so that Perelman would sell his
Coleman
outdoor gear company to Sunbeam in 1988. Sunbeam filed for bankruptcy
protection
in 2001 after its financial problems became known. Morgan Stanley has
estimated
it lost about $300 million when the company collapsed.
id='14'>Weld
Blames Government for Failure of School He Led
William F. Weld,
who resigned
last month as the CEO of a collapsing vocational college in Kentucky,
blamed
the federal government yesterday for driving it into bankruptcy by
cutting it
off from student aid, and said that he had offered to cooperate with a
federal
investigation into the school’s practices, the New York
Times reported
today. Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts who is seeking the
Republican
nomination for governor of New York, offered his account of the
closing of Decker
College in Louisville as political associates and other Republicans
said that
regardless of what investigators find, the school’s troubles are
likely to come
up in his race. Decker’s closing, on Oct. 21, interrupted
classes for thousands
of students, many of them holding student loans they say the school
encouraged
them to take.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/nyregion/metrocampaigns/18weld.html'>Read
the full story.
Steel Industry
id='15'>WCI
Support Expressed
Counsel for the
holders of
Warren, Ohio-based WCI Steel’s $300 million in senior secured
notes announced
that they reached a tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers
Union (USW)
that could lead to a collective bargaining agreement between the two
parties,
BankruptcyData.com reported today. As a result, the USW has announced
that it
intends to support the noteholders’ proposed revised
reorganization plan.
id='16'>Rebuilding
and Renewing: The Future of the Valley
If the slow death
of Bethlehem
Steel was tragedy, then the imminent slots-and-lofts redevelopment of
its idled
riverside steelworks is farce, the Muhlenberg Weekly reported
yesterday.
Twenty-eight years after "Black Sunday"—ten years
since the
company shuttered its flagship Bethlehem, Pa., plant and a mere four
years since
bankruptcy—a consortium of developers led by casino giant Las
Vegas Sands
plans to turn 130 acres of abandoned foundries and blast furnaces into
a theme-park
mix of stores, apartments, a casino hotel and even a concert arena.
This means
that the steelworks, with its craggy Lehigh River reflection, will no
longer
symbolize post-industrial American decay.
href='http://www.muhlenbergweekly.com/media/paper300/news/2005/11/17/Focus/Re…'>Read
the full story.