BUSINESS BRIEFS
Verizon settles cell-phone fee suit
Advertiser Staff and News Services
SAN FRANCISCO — Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a lawsuit filed by California customers upset with the company's early termination fees, a lawyer on the case said yesterday.
Many details of the settlement still need to be worked out and authorized by an Alameda County Superior Court judge, said Alan Plutzik, an attorney for the customers.
"We are recovering cash" that would "be available" to Verizon mobile phone customers who paid fees to end their contracts early, Plutzik said.
Plutzik said its unclear how many Verizon customers will be eligible to share in the settlement, a decision that will ultimately be up to the judge.
ACTORS GIVEN CONTRACT DEADLINE
LOS ANGELES — The major Hollywood studios have told the Screen Actors Guild that if the union does not accept its final contract offer by Aug. 15 any proposed wage increases would not be retroactive, the studios said yesterday.
The producers alliance threw down that gauntlet in its final offer, which it said included $250 million in additional compensation over three years.
If the deadline passes before the union ratifies a contract, that means the actors could lose more than $200,000 a day in increases dating to July 1, the day the new contract would take effect.
TREASURY'S STEEL JOINS WACHOVIA
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank, named Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel chief executive yesterday, ending a nearly six-week search for a new leader.
Steel succeeds Ken Thompson, who was ousted by the bank's board in June after a series of missteps.
Steel, 56, who has been the Treasury Department's liaison with Wall Street since the fall of 2006, announced his resignation yesterday, effective immediately.
