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Lawmakers Lobbying, Bankers Retiring and Movements Fizzling

WEEK IN VERSE Regulators approved a reduced version of Universal's $1.9 billion takeover of EMI Music that includes David Guetta's “Money.”

Internal government documents showed lawmakers lobbying behind the scenes to mute the Volcker Rule. | Goldman Sachs introduced someone who may be the first of the next generation of leaders. | Andrew Ross Sorkin declared Occupy Wall Street a fad.

A look back on our reporting of the past week's highs and lows in finance.

BP Offers to Acquire Larger Stake in Rosneft | The British oil company has offered to acquire a bigger stake in the Russian state oil company if it can sell its interests in a private joint venture, Mr. Kramer reported. BP's chief made the offer in a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin. DealBook '

The deal also holds the promise of reviving an ill-fated offshore exploration deal in the Russian Arctic that fell apart last year am id lawsuits, and more broadly tie BP's fate to Russia for years to come.

French Carmaker May Sell Logistics Arm | Struggling to stay afloat in the faltering European car market, PSA Peugeot Citroën has entered exclusive negotiations with J.S.C. Russian Railways to sell 75 percent of Gefco for 800 million euros, or about $1 billion, David Jolly and Andrew E. Kramer reported. DealBook '

The French automaker is reeling from its heavy exposure to the European market and its dependence on relatively low-margin models. New passenger car registrations were down 7.1 percent this year in Europe. With the euro zone in recession and the future of the currency itself uncertain, analysts were not predicting a quick turnaround.

Anschutz Is Said to Consider Sale of Its Entertainment Division | The parent company, owned by the billionaire Philip Anschutz, expects to reap billions of dollars from any sale of the sports and entertainmen t juggernaut that owns stakes in teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings, Michael J. de la Merced reported. DealBook '

The company is in the midst of pushing for approval to build a $1.2 billion stadium in downtown Los Angeles in an effort to draw in a professional football team to the city for the first time since the Rams decamped for St. Louis in 1995.

Lowe's Ends Effort to Acquire Rona, Its Canadian Rival | The home improvement retailer abandoned its $1.8 billion hostile bid, a move that avoids a political showdown with the government in Quebec, Ian Austen reported. DealBook '

In a rare point of agreement, both the Liberal Party, which lost an election this month in Quebec, and the separatist Parti Québécois, which will form the province's next government, spoke out strongly against the deal despite commitments from Lowe's to maintain a Canadian head office in Quebec and to cultivate Canadian su ppliers.

Russia to Raise $5 Billion in Sberbank Stake Sale | The Russian government announced that it would sell a 7.6 percent stake in the country's largest lender, in a rights offering that could raise around $5.1 billion, Mark Scott reported. DealBook '

The move would be one of Russia's largest share sales in recent years as the government aims to reduce its stakes in a number of the country's largest companies.

Investors have long awaited the announcement of Sberbank's rights offering, which had been hampered by volatility in global financial markets and the recent depressed performance of Russian stocks.

Executive at Goldman Is Retiring | Goldman Sachs introduced what may be the first of the next generation of leaders to run the storied Wall Street firm, Peter Lattman reported. The bank's longtime chief financial officer, David A. Viniar, will retire at the end of January and be replaced by Harvey M. Schwartz , a 48-year-old executive. DealBook '

Analysts said the departure of Mr. Viniar, who was viewed by analysts and investors as a source of stability for Goldman, indicated that the bank's leadership believed it had put one of the most challenging times in its history behind it. And it will likely spur further speculation about who will replace Mr. Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive since 2006. Mr. Blankfein, who will turn 58 on Thursday, has said he has no plans to retire.

Deal Professor: Behind Goldman Sachs's Success, a Focus on Survival | Steven M. Davidoff says that “Goldman is becoming the last pure-play, big investment bank. In a world where business consultants preach that a focus on your best business lines is necessary to success, Goldman is likely to have an advantage over the banking conglomerates.” DealBook '

It wasn't long ago that Goldman Sachs was painted as an outsize villain of the financial crisis, and its future seemed hazy. Today, however, Goldman Sachs has retained its clients and its dominance. And recent missteps by its competitors are putting the investment bank in pole position to profit when a recovery comes.

In Buyback Deal, Alibaba Gets Half of Yahoo's Stake | Yahoo got $3 billion to return to its shareholders, Mr. de la Merced reported. Some investors had fretted that the company's new chief executive, Marissa Mayer, would decide against doling proceeds from the sale to shareholders, including the hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb. DealBook '

Big Stock Offering by Japan Airlines Is Overshadowed by China's Anti-Japanese Protests | JAL's share price was weighed down by investor jitters over t he airline's prospects in a cutthroat industry, Hiroko Tabuchi reported. DealBook '

JAL has also become a far smaller airline with a more limited global reach and capacity that may be ill positioned to tap into growth, especially in Asia, where the aviation industry is most likely to have its fastest gains.

Standard Chartered Signs Pact With New York Regulator | The British bank agreed last month to pay $340 million to settle claims of illegally funneling money for Iranian banks and corporations. Until Friday, though, the final details were not hashed out, Jessica Silver-Greenberg reported. DealBook '

Federal authorities, including the Manhattan district attorney and the Justice Department, have their own investigations into Standard Chartered's activities. The bank is expected to resolve any criminal allegations with the Manhattan district attorney's office by next week, according to law enforcement officials.

Behind Scenes, Some Lawmakers Push to Change the Volcker Rule | More than 100 lawmakers have lobbied the Federal Reserve and other authorities, Ben Protess reported. E-mails between the Federal Reserve's top lawyer and an aide to Senator Scott Brown provide a glimpse of the partisan fight. DealBook '

“I have a very urgent request,” Nathaniel Hoopes, Mr. Brown's aide, wrote in an April 2011 e-mail. Seeking to fine-tune an exemption, he argued that a broad range of bank customers should be allowed to invest with hedge funds under the Volcker Rule. “My boss has been hearing it from constituents,” he added, referring to the rule's impact on Massachusetts-based financial firms.

In a first draft of the rule released last fall, regulators agreed with that broad definition.

The Trade: Distortion in Tax Code Makes Debt More Attractive to Banks | Jesse Eisinger of ProPublica says that banks pay a lot less taxes thanks to the tax code's favoring of debt over equity, a distortion that makes the financial system and the economy more fragile, prone to bankruptcies and runs. DealBook '

The system we have subsidizes the middleman to create dubious products. Those products help the middlemen - the banks - but they make the financial system more fragile. So the tax code distortion doesn't just lead to more debt in corporate America and more leveraged banks. It also helps create a finance-heavy economy where the banking sector accounts for a bigger proportion of gross domestic product and corporate profits than it otherwise would. Granted, the tax code is far from the only force in American society that creates a larger financial sector or overleveraged corporations. But it's one of the least recognized.

DealBook Column: Occupy Wall Street: A Frenzy That Fizzled | Andrew Ross Sorkin says that “now, 12 months later, it can and should be said that Occupy Wall Street was - perhaps this is going to sound indelicate - a fad.” DealBook '

Has the debate over breaking up the banks that were too big to fail, save for a change of heart by the former chairman of Citigroup, Sanford I. Weill, really changed or picked up steam as a result of Occupy Wall Street? No. Have any new regulations for banks or businesses been enacted as a result of Occupy Wall Street? No. Has there been any new meaningful push to put Wall Street executives behind bars as a result of Occupy Wall Street? No.