Shareholders win ruling for access to Qwest records
An appeals court in Denver has rejected an effort by Qwest to keep from plaintiffs in a shareholders civil lawsuit 220,000 pages of documents that it already has given the government.
In a decision issued Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling requiring Qwest to turn over the documents.
Qwest had provided the documents to the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission in their investigations of insider trading and accounting fraud at the company.
Qwest argued that it did not waive attorney-client privilege when it gave the documents to the government. Qwest asked the appeals court to issue a ruling protecting companies that voluntarily provide documents to the government.
The case stems from a 2001 shareholder lawsuit against Qwest that the company agreed to settle for $400 million. The shareholders are still suing former Qwest executives Joe Nacchio and Robert Woodruff.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE
Health clinics planned for some Wal-Marts
Greenwood Village-based SmartCare Family Medical Centers will open health clinics within select Wal-Mart Supercenters in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona during the third and fourth quarters of 2006.
The company has not announced specific locations. The clinics will be staffed by nurse practitioners and certified medical assistants and will offer care for common ailments such as sore throats, ear infections and seasonal allergies, as well as basic health services such as flu shots and other vaccines, school and employment physicals and cholesterol screenings.
DALLAS
Southwest Airlines to test assigning seats
Southwest Airlines Co. will test assigning seats to travelers, another indication that the maverick carrier may get in line with other U.S. airlines by junking its first-come, first-served seating system.
Passengers will be assigned seats on about 200 flights from San Diego starting July 10 and continuing for several weeks, an airline spokesman said Tuesday.
The airline wants to know if assigning seats will slow Southwest’s ability to unload incoming planes and board passengers for the next flight. It takes Southwest about 25 minutes on average to turn a plane around.
DENVER
Hotel occupancy, rates increase in May
Average occupancy rates and room rates at hotels in Denver and across Colorado continued to rise in May, compared with the same month last year, according to the latest Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, released Tuesday.
In the metro area, occupancy rates rose by 2.9 percentage points last month, to 66.6 percent. Average room rates jumped $10.02, to $100.97.
Statewide, occupancy rates rose by 2.3 percentage points, to 58.4 percent. Room rates increased $7.57, to $99.14.
DENVER
Teton Energy closes on $50 million loan
Denver-based Teton Energy Corp. has closed on a $50 million senior secured revolving credit facility. The loan, which was arranged by BNP Paribas, will be used for general corporate purposes, working capital, capital expenditures and acquisitions, the company said in a release.
TOKYO
Japan to lift its ban on U.S. beef imports
Japan agreed to lift its ban on U.S. beef imports, imposed this year amid concerns over mad cow disease, officials said today.
The accord came after a video conference between the sides, agriculture official Hiroaki Ogura said. No details about inspections of the beef were provided.
Japan’s market was worth $1.4 billion annually when it banned American beef in response to the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in 2003.
BROOMFIELD
Ball plans to rebuild German can factory
Packaging-products maker Ball Corp. said Tuesday it plans to rebuild a German beverage- can-manufacturing plant damaged by fire and expand capacity at a second German plant for an overall cost of about $113.4 million.
The company said the two projects will replace production lost in the plant fire.
WASHINGTON
Airlines’ workforce drops 4.8 percent
U.S. airlines had 4.8 percent fewer workers in April than a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. It was the 16th month in a row of year-over-year declines in the airline employee count. United Airlines had about 54,000 full-time-equivalent employees in April, down from about 56,000 a year earlier. Frontier’s count remained roughly flat at about 4,000.
DENVER
Charter school names executive director
Terry Croy Lewis has been named executive director of the Academy at High Point, a public charter school that will open in August at the 1,800-acre High Point development in northeast Denver. Susan Davis has been chosen as principal.
The school is being initially funded by startup grants from the Walton Family Foundation and the Colorado Department of Education.
DENVER
Justice unit to protect intellectual property
The Department of Justice said Tuesday it will create a unit in Denver to combat intellectual-property crimes. The Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit of the U.S. attorney’s office will provide specially trained prosecutors to address cybercrime and intellectual- property offenses. Denver is one of seven cities getting new CHIP units.
DENVER
Metro State names business-school dean
John Cochran has been named dean of the School of Business at Metro State College of Denver. He will begin as permanent dean July 1. He had been serving as interim dean since January 2004 and came to Metro State to teach economics after graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a doctorate in economics. Cochran has been with the college ever since, rising to full professor and chairman of the economics department, the college said.
WASHINGTON
Xcel Energy wins industry honor
The Edison Electric Institute on Tuesday awarded Xcel Energy and Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy the 2006 Edison Award, the electric-power industry’s highest honor. Minneapolis-based Xcel is Colorado’s largest power provider.
