Verizon fires 14, alleges false reporting of hours

Verizon Communications Inc., the region's largest telephone company, said it fired 14 managers in the Boston area about two weeks ago for "falsifying company reports" that track the hours employees work. Spokesman Phil Santoro said the misconduct did not affect customers, but violated the company's code of conduct. Separately, Verizon recently said that it was cutting 2,700 management-level jobs nationwide, or about 1 percent of its workforce, including an unspecified number in Massachusetts, where it has about 13,000 employees. (Todd Wallack)

Covidien Ltd., a medical device maker and diversified healthcare company with its US headquarters in Mansfield, said quarterly profit surged on higher sales, a weaker US dollar, and new products. But the company provided a weak outlook for the next year. While the weaker US dollar helped boost international sales for several quarters, the currency has regained some strength, cutting into the benefit for Covidien and its peers with a sizable overseas market. For the three months ended Sept. 26, Bermuda-based Covidien earned $409 million, or 81 cents per share, compared with profit of $34 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier. (AP)

EMC Corp., the world's biggest maker of storage computers, is starting a company to sell Internet services that help customers store and manage personal data, files, and photos. Called Decho, short for digital echo, the company will be made of up EMC's Mozy Inc. and Pi Corp. acquisitions. EMC is trying to get more sales from software and services, which are more profitable than its storage computers. Like Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc., the Hopkinton company in seeking ways to manage data across different locations and programs. (Bloomberg)

Genzyme Corp., a Cambridge drug maker, said the Food and Drug Administration has extended until Feb. 28 its deadline for reviewing Genzyme's application to market a new version of Myozyme, a drug for Pompe disease that's manufactured at the company's Boston plant. The biotech giant already has permission to market Myozyme made at its smaller plant in Framingham, but it's seeking approval to market the version made at its larger facility in Allston. Pompe disease is a progressive, debilitating, and life-threatening inherited disorder affecting approximately 2,000 people in the United States. (Todd Wallack)

Popular outrage over lavish pay for executives, which has prompted Goldman Sachs to cancel bonuses for top officers, may force other banks that are getting government aid to eliminate year-end bonuses, compensation specialists say. UBS yesterday unveiled a bonus plan that, starting in 2009, will make top executives wait three years before they receive stock-based bonuses and pay out cash bonuses over three years, plus impose penalties if performance diminishes. Bonuses have been criticized as the United States suffers its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. (Reuters)

Commerce Bancorp Inc.'s founder, Vernon Hill, ousted last year as chief executive, was told to curb real estate transactions with banks and pay TD Bank $4 million, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said. Hill was replaced in June 2007 after federal regulators forced Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Commerce to stop doing business with firms that were controlled by his family. The bank disclosed in earlier regulatory filings that it paid a firm owned by Hill's wife, Shirley Hill, $50 million during the past 10 years to design and furnish branches. (Bloomberg)

Genentech Inc. reported that a second patient who was taking the company's psoriasis treatment, Raptiva, has died after developing a rare brain infection. The 73-year-old woman died from progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, after taking Raptiva for more than four years, South San Francisco, Calif.-based Genentech said in a prepared statement. Genentech reported on Oct. 14 that a 70-year-old patient who also was taking the drug for more than four years had died from PML. The two cases suggest "prolonged exposure to Raptiva and older age" may further increase the risk for patients of developing PML, which has no cure, Genentech said. (Bloomberg)