IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 24 June
24-06-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Liberty Global shows interest in Setanta | ESOT's STT backing angers Eircom owner
The Irish Times reports that a man who alerted his bosses in Vodafone to a EUR3 million fraud and claimed he was then not given support by management has had a compensation award cut by the Labour Court. The man, who was not named, was awarded EUR14,500 by a Rights Commissioner in March on the basis of the "personal difficulties and perceived risks associated with bringing forward his allegations". The commissioner's award was appealed by Vodafone and the court said a EUR12,000 award was more appropriate. Vodafone said the man was employed in the company's fraud detection area and that by reporting the fraud he was "merely doing the job assigned to him".
The paper also reports that Liberty Global, the parent company of Irish cable TV providers NTL and Chorus, is interested in acquiring Setanta Sports' Irish business, which has been put up for sale following the collapse of its sister operation in Britain. Shane O'Neill, Liberty's chief strategy officer, said: "We would be interested in the Irish side of the business. We like the channel and it's liked by our customers." It is understood that a number of expressions of interest have been lodged in relation to the Irish business.
The Irish Independent notes that former Payzone director John Williamson, who along with founder John Nagle was ousted from the firm's board last year, has joined fuel group Topaz as its chief financial officer.
The paper also says that a decision by the Eircom Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) to back an offer for the company by Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) has angered the telco's Australian owner. Industry sources said that Eircom Holdings believes that the move by the ESOT, which holds a 35 percent stake in Eircom, to back STT has spooked other potential bidders. "The fund sees the backing of STT as killing off the competitive edge," said one source.
The same paper notes that it has launched an own-branded version of the IE8 web browser, following a partnership between Independent.ie and Microsoft Ireland. Independent.ie content and functions are embedded in the browser, which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/ireland/ie8independent.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Oracle has reported a drop in revenue for the first time since 2002, hurt by a strong dollar and slow spending on new technology projects. For the fiscal fourth quarter ended 31 May, profit fell 7.2 percent to USD1.89 billion and revenue dropped 5.2 percent to USD6.86 billion during what is seasonally one of the company's strongest quarters. Oracle issued upbeat guidance for the current quarter, however, forecasting that revenue would decline between 1 percent and 4 percent from a year earlier and predicting operating earnings per share of between USD0.29 and USD0.31.
The paper also says that EU regulators have laid out operating guidelines for social networking websites, to ensure they comply with privacy laws. The privacy guidelines include the following: sites should offer privacy-friendly default settings, users should be advised that pictures should only be uploaded with the individual's consent, sites must set maximum periods to retain data on inactive users and abandoned accounts must be deleted. Facebook and MySpace said they were studying the EU guidelines to assess how to respond.
The Financial Times says that cable television pioneer John Malone is to pay USD1.4 million in civil penalties to settle charges that he failed to properly notify the US government ahead of big stock purchases of Discovery Holdings over a three-year period. The chairman of Liberty Media violated antitrust pre-merger notification rules between August 2005 through 2008 that required a 30-day waiting period after notifying the government before purchasing shares of Discovery, an owner of documentary programming networks. The US Justice Department filed the suit on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission.
Free! "In the papers" email newsletter -- get the full text to your in-box every business day. Email itp@enn.ie with 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Creating successful email surveys: Denise Cox of email specialist Newsweaver argues that you can tap into your readers' likes or dislikes by surveying them.
