Texas company to buy Tower Technology
Vignette Corp., a Texas maker of Internet software, agreed to buy Tower Technology Pty Ltd. for $125 million in cash and stock to gain customers including the Treasury Department and Riggs Bank NA. Vignette will pay $45 million in cash and $80 million of its stock for closely held Tower, the company said. Boston-based Tower develops records management products that help companies manage paperwork and Web documents. (Bloomberg)
Millennium cancer drug clears EU hurdle
Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., whose Velcade blood cancer medicine won approval in the United States last year, received the backing of a European Union health advisory committee. The Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products recommended approving Velcade for patients with multiple myeloma who are no longer helped by older treatments, the Cambridge company said. The European Commission usually follows recommendations from the committee. Millennium, which sells the drug with partner Johnson & Johnson, expects sales of Velcade to rise to $160 million this year. (Bloomberg)
Hasbro files suit over knockoff toys
Toymaker Hasbro Inc. of Pawtucket, R.I., has sued several individuals and companies it claims are responsible for producing a knockoff version of one of its most popular products, Beyblade spinning tops. The nation's second-largest toymaker filed suit Jan. 9 in US District Court in Boston, charging copyright and trademark infringement and unfair competition. The suit names Perfect Deal and Market Point Group LLC and individuals Amit Raibi and Daniel Cohen as defendants. The suit said the two men are presidents of the two Florida companies. The defendants haven't yet filed responses to the complaint in federal court. (Dow Jones)
Analog Devices wins Indian court ruling
Analog Devices Inc. of Norwood, the world's number four maker of signal-processing chips for mobile phones and electronics, said it won an interim injunction from an Indian court in a copyright infringement suit against a distributor of Shanghai Belling Co., a Chinese chipmaker. The Delhi High Court ordered Shanghai Belling's distributor to stop buying and distributing the Chinese company's energy-metering chips, Analog Devices said. A Shanghai Belling official declined to comment. The lawsuit alleges Belling copied Analog Device's chips and sold them as substitutes to the original, the company said. (Bloomberg)
Swarovski lays off 122 at R.I. facility
The Swarovski Group, known for its crystal accessories and gifts, laid off 122 people at its Cranston, R.I., facility as part of a major restructuring of its US operations. The jewelry manufacturer said it is significantly reducing US production of its crystal jewelry and will stop selling it through major US department stores. The company's US operation, Swarovski North America Limited, said it was laying off 146 people across North America, most of them in Cranston, where the manufacturing and distribution center is located, and in which 75 percent of the Swarovski jewelry sold in the United States was produced. (AP)
THE NATION
Scrushy, US reach agreement on assets
Richard Scrushy, the HealthSouth Corp. founder accused of inflating the company's earnings by $2.7 billion, reached a secret agreement with US prosecutors related to access to his frozen assets. US District Judge Karon Bowdre in Birmingham, Ala., who froze the assets when Scrushy was indicted in November, canceled a hearing to resolve a dispute over access. Prosecutors wanted to seize $279 million in Scrushy's cash and property, including homes, yachts, jewelry, and cars. Scrushy wanted access to assets unrelated to his HealthSouth pay. Bowdre's order didn't detail the agreement between prosecutors and Scrushy's lawyers. Scrushy goes to trial Aug. 23 on charges of money laundering, securities fraud, and wire fraud in connection with accounting irregularities at HealthSouth, the largest US operator of rehabilitation hospitals. He has pleaded not guilty to charges. (Bloomberg)
