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The Irish Independent reports that the Irish government has agreed to provide bilingual facilities for constituencies that use electronic voting in the Nice referendum. Palmerstown resident Ciaran O Feinneadha had complained that the interactive screen used for electronic voting was in English only, and the High Court had granted him leave to seek judicial review of the government's plans for electronic voting in his constituency of Dublin West.
The same paper reports that Easycash, the company of former Esat Telecom director Mark Roden, is planning to sell UK lottery tickets through a network of 300 ATMs in Ireland. Roden, who founded Esat with Denis O'Brien, has held discussions with Rehab Lotteries about the possibility of selling lottery tickets through cash dispensing machines throughout the country, the paper said. A spokesperson for the National Lottery said it was illegal to sell UK lottery tickets in Ireland.
The paper also says that troubled telecoms company Deutsche Telekom has selected three bidders interested in buying its remaining cable assets, part of its debt-reduction programme. For the final round of bids, the company chose a consortium of Goldman Sachs and private equity houses Providence Equity and Apax Partners; a group based around Texan private equity house Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst; and a bid led by investment group Warburg Pincus. Sources said DT excluded a bid from US media group Liberty Media and private equity houses Blackstone Partners and Apollo. Industry sources said the bids came in at a range of EUR2 billion to EUR2.5 billion, well short of the EUR3.5 billion DT had said it wanted.
The paper also notes that shares in Vodafone fell over 4 percent to STG0.86 on Monday. The shares fell after the company said the net increase in monthly subscriptions at its Japanese J-Phone unit had slumped 43 percent from the year-earlier period.
According to the Financial Times, satellite TV operators EchoStar and Hughes Electronics are ready to offer substantial concessions to US antitrust authorities in an attempt to win approval for their proposed merger. The deal, which would create a single satellite TV operator in the US, has been met with fierce opposition from consumer groups and rival media companies. The two companies have now agreed to discuss possible "major revisions" to the merger with the Department of Justice.
The same paper reports that Buford Yates, WorldCom's former director of general accounting, has pleaded guilty to securities fraud. Earlier in the year, Yates, along with former chief financial officer Scott Sullivan, had pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to hide about USD7.2 billion in operating expenses. Yates has now pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of committing securities fraud. He is now expected to co-operate with federal prosecutors, which could help them build a case against Bernie Ebbers, WorldCom's founder and former chief executive officer.
The Wall Street Journal says that Microsoft has set up a unit to provide companies with low-interest loans and leases in order to buy its software. The unit, called Microsoft Capital, is offering three financing programs, including two for small businesses. One of the programs offers as much as USD150,000 at 0 percent interest for 24 months on certain purchases. The unit could help the software giant make better use of its nearly USD39 billion in cash.
The paper also reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating AOL Time Warner's investment-and-advertising agreement with Oxygen Media. Sources say the SEC wants to find out if the deal involved AOL Time Warner booking the same revenue at more than one division. Oxygen had a complex deal with AOL under which Time Warner Cable agreed to put the cable channel on its systems without a launch fee, while Oxygen agreed to spend about USD100 million in advertising at AOL, mostly on America Online. Sources say AOL engineered intercompany advertising transactions so that the ad revenue was reflected in both America Online's divisional numbers and those of Time Warner Cable.
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