Daily Briefing

AGRICULTURE

Monsanto sells synthetic hormone

Eli Lilly & Co. agreed to pay at least $300 million for Monsanto Co.’s Posilac, a synthetic hormone used to boost milk production in cows. The agreement, announced Wednesday by both companies, will expand Lilly’s veterinary operations and enable Monsanto, a maker of pesticides and seeds, to focus on genetically modified crops. Lilly gains the U.S. sales force for Posilac and the manufacturing plant in Augusta. It also inherits opposition to the hormone from consumer advocates.

AUTOMOTIVE

Hyundai to offer hybrid Sonata

Barton Hills, Mich. —- Hyundai Motor Corp. says it will bring a gas-electric hybrid version of its Sonata sedan to the United States. Honda’s vice president of product development, John Krafcik, said Wednesday that the automaker will display a hybrid version of the midsize Sonata at the Los Angeles auto show in November. The company says it will announce at the show the date that the hybrid will be sold in the U.S.

Navistar drops plan to buy GM unit

Warrenville, Ill. —- Navistar International Corp. says it’s dropping its immediate plans to buy GM’s medium-duty truck business. Navistar said the decision was prompted by marketplace and economic changes.

FOOD / BEVERAGE

Teamsters broker deal for bakery

Kansas City, Mo. —- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said Wednesday that it had brokered a deal between a financial firm looking to invest in bankrupt Interstate Bakeries Corp. and the company’s lenders. The Teamsters had publicly criticized lenders Monday for holding up the negotiations. They said Ripplewood Holdings, based in New York, will provide the cash for the Kansas City-based maker of Hostess Twinkies and Wonder Bread to exit almost four years of Chapter 11 reorganization.

ECONOMY

Fed official says patience in order

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern said an oil price decline will probably push headline inflation lower, allowing the central bank to “be patient” in considering a change to the main interest rate. “Now is a good time to be patient because I do think we will see better news on the inflation front,” Stern told Bloomberg Television.

LEGAL

Mattel seeks huge award in Bratz case

Riverside, Calif. —- The maker of pouty-lipped Bratz dolls owes toy giant Mattel Inc. nearly $2 billion for stealing its conceptual drawings for the urban-themed toys, a Mattel attorney said Wednesday during closing arguments in the damages phase of a copyright infringement lawsuit. The jury ruled last month in the first phase of the federal trial that the designer of MGA Entertainment Inc.’s Bratz dolls, Carter Bryant, came up with the concept while working for Mattel. The jury also found that Los Angeles-based MGA aided in the breach of contract, and its chief executive, Isaac Larian, played a role in the deal. In his closing arguments, Mattel attorney John Quinn said MGA owes Mattel at least $1 billion in Bratz profits and interest, while Larian owes nearly $800 million.

Apple sued over iPhone ad claims

Apple Inc. was sued over claims that its new iPhone 3G drops calls and doesn’t download Web pages and music at twice the rate of its predecessor, as the company advertises. The iPhone 3G, which relies on a new high-speed worldwide standard to download data, connects to the network “less than 25 percent of the time,” according to a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Birmingham. Plaintiff Jessica Smith seeks class-action status. Apple advertises the iPhone 3G as being “Twice as fast. Half the price.”

Vioxx payments to start next week

Partial payments for people claiming withdrawn painkiller Vioxx caused heart attacks will go out starting Aug. 28 under the $4.85 billion settlement between drug maker Merck & Co. and plaintiffs’ lawyers, the claims administrator said Wednesday. The settlement, meant to end the bulk of personal injury lawsuits against Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck, was reached in November. Three years earlier, Merck pulled Vioxx from the market after its own research showed the once-blockbuster arthritis pill doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke.

MANUFACTURING

Lockheed protest on plane denied

Washington —- Government auditors denied Lockheed Martin’s protest of a $1.16 billion Navy contract to develop unmanned aircraft that can patrol coastlines and open ocean because its proposal was deemed riskier than the other bids, according to details released Wednesday. Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. beat out Lockheed Martin Corp. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. in April to develop a plane for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance —- or BAMS —- program. The contract could ultimately be worth billions based on the Navy’s plans to buy 68 planes.

REGULATORY

FTC cracks down on recorded calls

Starting next fall, prerecorded telephone sales pitches will effectively be banned, thanks to a rule change announced this week by the Federal Trade Commission. After September 2009, the only way a company will be able to call you with a prerecorded sales message is if you have given your written permission. That prohibition applies no matter whether you are on the Do Not Call registry and regardless of whether you have done business with the company. Starting this December, the FTC will require telemarketers, at the outset of a prerecorded call, to give you an interactive way —- such as a key or voice prompt —- to end the call and opt out of receiving future calls.

Auction-rate probe targets brokerages

New York —- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that smaller brokerage firms that acted as middlemen in sales of auction-rate securities will be held accountable for any losses suffered by investors. Brokerages such as Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade and Oppenheimer are being investigated over how they pitched the investments to clients, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. Such firms acted as secondary dealers by purchasing auction-rate securities from the major banks. “If downstream brokerages deliberately stuck their heads in the sand but continued to actively market these products to unknowing investors, that will certainly be relevant to our calculus of the firms’ culpability,” Benjamin Lawsky, deputy counselor and special assistant in the attorney general’s office, said in the letter. According to the AP, Cuomo’s next targets among big firms will be Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

TECHNOLOGY

EBay slashes fees for fixed-cost items

EBay Inc. has lowered fees for listing fixed-cost items by more than 70 percent to attract additional sellers and compete with Amazon.com. EBay said the changes won’t affect its earnings projections. Sellers will pay 35 cents to list multiple quantities of the same item for 30 days, the company said Wednesday in a statement. Previously, sellers paid between 35 cents and $4 per item listed for seven days. The new prices take effect Sept. 16.

Comcast to slow some Net service

Comcast Corp. plans to slow Internet service to its heaviest users during periods of congestion, after regulators ordered the company to devise a new method for managing Web traffic. The top Internet speeds for targeted customers will be reduced for periods lasting 10 minutes to 20 minutes, keeping service to other users flowing, Mitch Bowling, Comcast’s senior vice president and general manager of online services, said in an interview Tuesday. The Federal Communications Commission found on Aug. 1 that Comcast had improperly blocked peer-to-peer programs such as BitTorrent that are used to share videos and other files.

Oracle chief’s pay $84.6 million

Billionaire Larry Ellison raked in a fiscal 2008 pay package valued at $84.6 million for his work as Oracle Corp.’s chief executive and topped it off with a nearly $544 million windfall from cashing in stock options that he has accumulated during his 31-year reign at the business software maker. Oracle’s payments and other awards to Ellison, spelled out in documents filed Wednesday, represented a 38 percent raise from the $61.2 million package that the company doled out to its flamboyant leader in the previous year. Unlike most companies, Oracle operates on a fiscal year ending May 31.

Intel, Yahoo to offer Net/TV ‘widget’

Intel Corp. and Yahoo Inc. will offer software that makes it easier to display Internet content such as weather forecasts and sports scores on televisions. The Widget Channel program will let software developers display information on screens without interfering with regular programming, Intel Senior Vice President Eric Kim said Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Intel is creating more chips for consumer electronics devices, broadening its sales beyond personal computers. For Yahoo, offering content on televisions may help the company get its Internet ads in front of more viewers.

TRANSPORTATION

Regulators criticize British airport firm

London —- Britain’s competition watchdog said Wednesday that it may force airports operator BAA to sell three of its seven airports around the country —- including two in London —- following fierce criticism of the company for poor customer service, overcrowding and long delays. The interim report from the Competition Commission, which argues that problems at London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports are a result of BAA’s monopoly, was harsher than the industry had expected.

FAA reviews Eclipse light jets

Washington —- Federal aviation officials said Wednesday that they are conducting an unusual 30-day review of the Eclipse 500 very light jets in response to reports of safety problems when the planes were certified in 2006. The union representing aircraft certification engineers at the Federal Aviation Administration has complained that agency managers came to work on Sept. 30, 2006 —- a Saturday that was the last day of the federal budget year —- and ordered the Eclipse jets be certified for flight over the objections of engineers still testing the high-tech plane. The FAA said Wednesday it put together a review team Aug. 11 to look at the jets’ safety and certification.

Strike disrupts flights in India

Calcutta, India —- International and domestic flights were disrupted across India on Wednesday as thousands of airport employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports, officials said. The airport in Calcutta, the largest city in eastern India, was the hardest hit, with at least 80 flights delayed for a day or longer, said V.K. Monga, the airport’s director. The New Delhi and Mumbai airports, which are the country’s two busiest and serve most international flights, were barely affected by the strike because they are privately run. Nevertheless, there were fears that tens of thousands of passengers would be stranded or severely delayed after nearly 15,000 workers —- baggage handlers, cleaners and ground staff —- at 127 government-run airports walked off their jobs.

UTILITIES / ENERGY

Iraq invites oil bids from Russian firms

Moscow —-An Iraqi Cabinet minister on Wednesday invited Russia’s Lukoil to renew its bid on the vast West Qurna-2 oil field and urged Russian companies to seek roles rebuilding dilapidated power plants as Iraq searches for foreign investment. “I hope Russian companies will take part in the bidding,” Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid told a news conference in Moscow. “Lukoil is welcome to bid for the service contract at the second or third stage of the tender in March or September.” Lukoil signed a contract for West Qurna-2, one of the largest oil fields in the world, in 1997. Saddam Hussein declared the deal void shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Government grants Gulf drilling leases

Washington —- Energy companies have placed $487.3 million in winning bids for the right to drill in the western Gulf of Mexico, knowing they may get a chance later to also explore in other areas that have been off-limits for decades. The lease sale Wednesday was the first to take place since President Bush last month lifted an executive ban on oil drilling off the coasts. Since then, politicians in both parties have signaled willingness to expand offshore exploration.