GOOGLE'S ANTITRUST VICTORY  | The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that Google had not violated antitrust or anticompetition laws in the way it arranges its search results - a major victory for the Internet giant after a nearly two-year investigation. The decision amounts to “a slap on the wrist,†The New York Times's Claire Cain Miller and Nick Wingfield write.
Edward Wyatt reports: “By allowing Google to continue to present search results that highlight its own services, the F.T.C. decision could enable Google to further strengthen its already dominant position on the Internet. It also enables Google to avoid a costly and lengthy legal war of attrition like the antitrust battle that Microsoft waged in the 1990s.†The decision may set up a conflict with officials in Europe, where Google is battling similar concerns.
The five members of the F.T.C. voted unanimously to close the investigation without bringing charges. “While not everything Google did was beneficial, on balance we did not believe that the evidence supported an F.T.C. challenge to this aspect of Google's business under American law,†Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the F.T.C., said. Mr. Wyatt writes: “Google did agree to make some minor changes to its search practices related to search advertising. The F.T.C. said those commitments were enforceable if the company violated them, b ut the agreement avoided a formal consent decree or litigation, weapons that the F.T.C. had available.â€
In making their case to regulators, Google executives traveled to Washington and applied lessons learned from Microsoft's antitrust battle. The army of executives, lawyers, lobbyists and engineers argued “that technology is such a fast-moving industry that regulatory burdens would hinder its evolution,†and that the “definition of competition in the tech industry is also different and constantly changing,†people briefed on the discussions told The Times. Google spent $13.1 million on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with $5.9 million in the period a year earlier, and the company's executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, has become a close adviser to Presid ent Obama.
NO CHARGES FOR FORMER BUFFETT AIDE  | The Securities and Exchange Commission has ended its investigation of David L. Sokol, a onetime top lieutenant at Warren E. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, without filing insider trading charges, DealBook's Ben Protess reports. The decision not to pursue a civil enforcement action ends a chapter that began when Mr. Sokol resigned abruptly in 2011 as chairman of Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings. Mr. Sokol had bought shares of the lubricant maker Lubrizol about two months before Berkshire announced a $9 billion acquisition of the company, Berkshire revealed at the time. But after an investigation, “S.E.C. lawyers decided that there was insufficient evidence to mount a case against Mr. Sokol,†Mr. Protess reports. “The evidence was circumstantial, S.E.C. officials concluded, and it was unclear whether Mr. Sokol had a true window into the Lubrizol deal-making process.â€
WEGELIN ADMITS TAX LAW VIOLATIONS Â |Â Wegelin & Company, Switzerland's oldest private bank, admitted on Thursday to helping Americans evade taxes, agreeing to pay $74 million in fines, restitution and forfeiture proceeds to the United States government. The admission was the first time a foreign financial institution has pleaded guilty to tax law violations, and it represents a victory for the Obama administration in its crackdown on tax evasion through offshore banks, DealBook's Peter Lattman reports.
Representatives for Wegelin acknowledged that for nearly a decade the firm helped wealthy Americans dodg e taxes by hiding more than $1.2 billion in secret accounts. “From about 2002 through 2010, Wegelin agreed with certain U.S. taxpayers to evade the tax obligations of these U.S. taxpayer clients, who filed false tax returns with the I.R.S.,†Otto Bruderer, a Wegelin partner, said in court. “Wegelin was aware the conduct was wrong.†Mr. Bruderer said the bank believed it would not be prosecuted in the United States because it had no offices there, adding that the conduct was common practice in the Swiss banking industry. Another Wegelin partner, Konrad Hummler, also appeared at the hearing in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
ON THE AGENDA Â |Â Jobs numbers for December are out at 8:30 a.m. The ISM non-manufacturing index for December and data on factory orders in November are out at 10 a.m.
POSSIBLE SUITORS FOR BAUSCH & LOMB Â |Â The eye care products maker Bausch & Lomb has attracted interest from suitors including Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, Bloomberg News reports, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. Warburg Pincus, the company's private equity owner, is said to be seeking more than $10 billion in a sale. Warburg, which is working with Goldman Sachs, is seeking first-round bids for Bausch & Lomb by the end of the month, according to Bloomberg. At $10 billion, a deal would give the private equity firm a gain o f more than 200 percent on its $1.7 billion equity investment, the news service says.
Seeing Opportunity, WPP Adds to Its Investments in Latin America  | Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the British advertising giant WPP, says he sees growth prospects in Latin America. The firm has taken a 20 percent stake in an information technology services company based in Argentina.
DealBook '
How Gore Got the Current TV Deal Done  | When he decided in December to sell Current TV to Al J azeera for $500 million, Al Gore used “personal lobbying and arm-twisting†in convincing distributors to keep their contracts with the channel, the Media Decoder blog reports.
NEW YORK TIMES MEDIA DECODER
Barnes & Noble Reports Decline in Nook Sales  | A week after a big investment by Pearson, Barnes & Noble says that revenue for its Nook unit â€" including e-readers, digital content and accessories â€" fell 12.6 percent, to $311 million, during the holiday shopping season.
DealBook '
Hormel to Buy Skippy Peanut Butter  | The Hormel Foods Corporation said on Thursday that it had agreed to buy the Skippy peanut butter business from Unilever for $700 million.
DealBook '
A Year of Bungled Predictions on Wall Street  | Bloomberg News writes: “From John Paulson's call for a collapse in Europe to Morgan Stanley's warning that U.S. stocks would decline, Wall Street got little right in its prognosis for the year just ended.â€
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Investors Skeptical of Actively Managed Stock Funds  | The Wall Street Journal reports: “Investors are jumping out of mutual funds managed by professional stock pickers and shifting massive amounts of money into lower-cost funds that echo the broader market.â€
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Santander Said to Be Cutting 3,000 Jobs After Merger  |Â
REUTERS
Citigroup Hires Goldman Executive to Oversee Mexican Investment Bank  |Â
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Carlyle Seeks Financing for Purchase of DuPont Unit  | The private equity firm is seeking $2.9 billion of loans, Bloomberg News reports, citing an unidentified person with knowledge of the transaction.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Ackman Ends Push for Merger of Mall Companies  | William A. Ackman dropped his efforts to encourage the Simon Property Group to buy General Growth Properties, but his firm is coming away with a 77-fold return on its investment in General Growth, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Cohen's Hedge Fund Ranks Highest by Profit  | Bloomberg Markets magazine found that SAC Capital International, Steven A. Cohen's flagship hedge fund, was the most profitable hedge fund in the world in the first 10 months of 2012, earning $789.5 million.
BLOOMBERG MARKETS MAGAZINE
Metacapital Management Tops Ranking With 38% Return  | The hedge fund had success by investing in mortgages, according to Bloomberg Markets.
BLOOMBERG MARKETS MAGAZINE
100 Large Hedge Funds, Ranked by Performance  |Â
BLOOMBERG MARKETS MAGAZINE
SeaWorld Said to Weigh Sale as Alternative to I.P.O.  | Reuters reports: “SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment has held early talks with interested parties to explore whether a private sale could fetch more than an initial public offering, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.â€
REUTERS
Weighing the Outcome of SeaWorld's I.P.O. Â |Â New investors may be hard pressed to duplicate the success that the Blackstone Group has had with the operator of theme parks, Antony Currie writes in Reuters Breakingviews.
DealBook '
BuzzFeed Announces $20 Million in New Financing  | BuzzFeed, the social news Web site that was one of the media industry darlings of 2012, announced on Thursday that it had raised nearly $20 million in new financing from its investors, reports Brian Stelter on the Media Decoder blog.
DealBook '
Former SAC Portfolio Manager Pleads Not Guilty in Insider Case  | The plea of not guilty by Mathew Martoma, a onetime SAC portfolio manager, sets the stage for a possible courtroom battle that would put the spotlight on the hedge fund and its owner, Steven A. Cohen.
DealBook '
Banks Face New Checks on Derivatives Trading  | By New Year's Eve, 65 banks had registered their derivatives business with regulators and turned over heaps of real-time trading data to outside warehouses, fu lfilling a centerpiece of the Obama administration's financial regulatory crackdown.
DealBook '
At Recent Meeting, Fed Officials Debated Length of Stimulus  | The New York Times reports: “Just a few months after announcing a campaign to reduce unemployment, Federal Reserve officials are already debating how soon to stop it, reflecting persistent internal divisions about the effort's value.â€
NEW YORK TIMES
Geithner Said to Plan to Leave by End of Month  | The Treasury secretary “has indicated to W hite House officials he wants to carry through with his plan to leave the administration by the end of this month, even if a deal on the debt limit isn't in place, according to two people familiar with the matter,†Bloomberg News reports, citing two unidentified people familiar with the matter.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
