Источник: The Economist
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A federal appeal court ordered a retrial of Frank Quattrone,an investment banker made rich by the 1990s tech boom, who was convicted in 2004 of obstructing justice. In similar thinking to last year's Supreme Court's ruling that overturned Arthur Andersen's conviction, the court found fault with instructions given to the jury at Mr Quattrone's trial. The judge had not made it clear that to secure a conviction he had to be found to have knowingly obstructed an investigation into share dealings when he asked colleagues to wipe e-mails. See article[E+]
Chen Jiulin, the former chief executive of China Aviation Oil, was sentenced by a court in Singapore to four years in jail for his part in a $550m derivatives scandal in 2004. Mr Chen pleaded guilty last week to six charges that included issuing false financial statements. Several former executives have been sentenced in the case, which was Singapore's biggest financial scandal in a decade.
PetroChina reported net income of 133.4 billion yuan ($16.3 billion) for 2005. The profits were larger than those made by firms such as Total and Chevron, and are the biggest-ever for an Asian publicly listed company (which is a subsidiary of state-run CNPC).
BAA rejected an ?8.75 billion ($15.4 billion) preliminary takeover offer from Grupo Ferrovial, a Spanish firm which specialises in infrastructure and which has been mulling a bid for the British airports operator since February. Britain's regulators gave Ferrovial until April 24th to make a firm offer.
SITA, a firm which provides IT systems to airlines, estimated that missing luggage will cost the industry $2.5 billion this year. Most of the 30m stray valises will be returned, eventually, to their rightful owners, but 204,000 bags (out of three billion that are checked in) will be lost for ever.