Citigroup to shed 4,500 jobs

December 7, 2011 at 3:26AM

Citigroup to shed 4,500 jobsCitigroup Inc. is eliminating 4,500 jobs in its latest effort to cut costs. The bank will take a $400 million charge in the fourth quarter as a result. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit disclosed the job cuts at an investor conference Tuesday and said the cuts would be made over the next few quarters. The cuts represent about 1.5 percent of its global workforce of 267,000.

Verizon keeping Google Wallet off the NexusVerizon Wireless is blocking Google's new flagship phone from supporting Google's attempt to make the smartphone the credit card of the future. In blocking the Google Wallet software from running on the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Verizon Wireless said that it was holding off on providing a wallet application until it can offer "the best security and user experience." Verizon and rivals AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA are part of a consortium called ISIS that is planning its own payment system.

Senate panel will compel Corzine to testifyA Senate panel has voted to subpoena former Sen. Jon Corzine to testify about his role leading MF Global. The brokerage firm filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31 after a disastrous bet on European debt. Nearly $1.2 billion is estimated to be missing from customer accounts. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Corzine's testimony at the Dec. 13 hearing is essential to learn what happened. The vote comes just days after the House Agriculture Committee took similar action to force Corzine to appear at a hearing Thursday. Corzine, a Democrat, represented New Jersey in the Senate from 2001 to 2005. He later served as the state's governor. This would be the first time a member of Congress has been forced to testify before his former peers since 1908.

Olympus leaders branded 'rotten to the core'An outside panel appointed by Olympus to investigate its financial scandal issued a harsh report, calling the company's recently departed management "rotten to the core." The panel, led by a former Japanese Supreme Court judge, also details the roles it claims were played by three former Nomura bankers in arranging a cover-up, and it says Olympus paid the bankers for their efforts. It also criticizes Olympus' auditors, KPMG AZSA and Ernst & Young ShinNihon, for failing to expose fraud at the company. The auditors denied wrongdoing. The panel repeated a preliminary finding announced last month: that it found no evidence of organized crime involvement in the Olympus scandal. That issue was crucial because evidence of mob links could have prompted the Tokyo Stock Exchange to delist Olympus shares, hurting the value of shares by making the stock difficult to sell.

Europe eyes possible collusion on e-booksThe European antitrust authority said Tuesday that it was investigating possible collusion between Apple and five major publishing houses in the market for electronic books. The European Commission said that Apple may have helped imprints like Penguin, owned by Pearson of Britain, and Harper Collins, owned by News Corp. of the United States, to engage in "anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books." The three other imprints named were Hachette Livre, owned by Lagardere of France; Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS of the United States, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck of Germany.

India wants Web cleansed of offensive contentIndia's top telecommunications official said Tuesday that Internet giants such as Facebook and Google have ignored his demands to screen derogatory material from their sites, so the government would have to act on its own. Government officials are upset about Web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures. Kapil Sibal, India's telecommunications minister, said he spoke repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet. In a meeting Monday, the Internet companies told him there was nothing they could do, he said, so the government would formulate a policy on its own. He declined to specify what that policy would be.

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