BUSINESS BRIEFS
Crude oil prices up again; another spike expected
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Oil closed at a new record near $141 a barrel yesterday on worries about tight supply and mounting tensions in the Middle East.
Crude prices resumed their advance as the head of the International Energy Agency said the world is experiencing its "third oil price shock," comparing the effects of today's prices with the oil crises that began with the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979 revolution in Iran.
IEA chief Nobuo Tanaka added that OPEC is pumping oil at record levels and other producers "are working at full throttle." His comments reinforced the IEA's latest prediction that global supplies will remain pinched despite record prices and falling demand in the U.S. and Europe.
The national average price for a gallon of gas was a record $4.087 yesterday. The average in Hawai'i was $4.429 a gallon.
COURT OVERTURNS LEAD-PAINT VERDICT
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island's Supreme Court overturned a first-in-the-nation jury verdict that found three former lead-paint companies responsible for creating a public nuisance, rejecting a closely watched case that had been seen as a bellwether for potential suits across the country.
The 4-0 decision ends the nearly decadelong court fight and spares the companies from potentially billions in cleanup costs for hundreds of thousands of contaminated homes.
Rhode Island was the first state to successfully sue former makers of lead pigment and paint, which can cause learning disabilities, brain damage and other health problems in children. A jury in 2006 found Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries, Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC liable for creating a public nuisance by manufacturing a toxic product.
The state had proposed that the companies spend $2.4 billion inspecting and cleaning hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island homes believed to contain lead paint.
VISA CHANGES DEBIT-CARD RULE
WASHINGTON — Consumers can now use Visa debit cards for smaller purchases without entering a personal identification number, the same way they can skip signing receipts.
Visa said it is no longer requiring merchants to treat its debit cards differently when customers use them as PIN-debit cards, as opposed to signature cards. The move prompted the Justice Department to drop an antitrust investigation of the practice.
Visa has allowed banks to permit merchants to waive the signature requirement when customers use Visa debit cards, usually on small purchases below $25, the department said. But Visa has prohibited banks from allowing merchants to waive the entry of a PIN if a customer chooses that route.
Visa said it ended the prohibition on waiving PINs effective yesterday.
When a customer uses the debit card as a signature card, the transaction is processed over Visa's network, but if the customer uses a PIN with the same card, it is processed over a separate network.
$2.1M LUNCH BID AMAZES BUFFETT
OMAHA, Neb. — A Chinese investment fund manager's bid for the chance to have lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett was the largest ever in a charity auction on eBay and surprised even Buffett.
"It kind of blew me away," Buffett said yesterday.
Zhao Danyang of the Hong Kong-based Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund won the auction, which ended Friday evening, with a bid of $2,110,100.
The Oracle of Omaha said the size of Zhao's bid doesn't mean the meal will stretch past the three hours Buffett usually spends with auction winners.
Auction proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco.
This was the sixth year that Buffett has auctioned a lunch on eBay to benefit Glide. Buffett began auctioning the lunches for Glide off-line in 2000.
