International court rejects Piaggio's plea
New Delhi: The International Court of Arbitration has rejected Italian two-wheeler major Piaggio's plea for interim injunction against its Indian partner LML having a technology tie-up with a third party for its proposed motorcycle venture.

The tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce has dismissed Piaggio's application. The Italian company's effort to stop LML from exporting its products and disclosing Piaggio's knowhow, has also been stymied by the court, which has also refused Piaggio the right to audit LML accounts, besides  return of its technology and cessation of use of this technology.

Piaggio had sought these interim reliefs pending a decision on its main arbitration petition.

LML is finalising a technology pact with Daelim of South Korea for its proposed motorcycle, and with Benelli of Italy for its scooterettes.
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Adobe plans another R&D centre in India
New Delhi: Adobe Systems India is planning to have a second research and development centre in India. Naresh Chand Gupta, managing director of the company, has been quoted by the Business Standard as saying, "We would be expanding our operations in India, which would involve adding more manpower and expanding our current infrastrucutre."

The president and chairman of Adobe, Charles M. Geschke is visiting Indian on 8 October. Dr Geschke is giving a talk on Electronic Paper, a concept that sees the written word move from the paper to the computer totally. Adobe has four software development centres -- at San Jose and Seattle in the US, Hamburg in Germany and in New Delhi.
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Kirloskars into real estate
New Delhi: The Kirloskar group is planning to enter real estate development in association with the New York-based Chatterjee group, an affiliate of Soros Fund Management.

The two groups have joined hands for the Kirloskar Business Park, coming up on a 38-acre property in Bangalore. The 15-year project has a total outlay of about Rs 350 crore.

This will be the group's first real estate project, Vikram Kirloskar, director of Kirloskar Systems, said.
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JTM adds more countries to network
Hyderabad: JT Mobile has added 10 countries to its international auto roaming facility, and 175 towns and cities in India for national auto roaming.

The facility will give JT Mobile subscribers access to Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, UAE, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland and Mauritius. South Africa, Austria and Sri Lanka will be added shortly.

The company has signed agreements with international cellular operators for this facility, with which a JT Mobile subscriber in Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka can dial any number in these countries using the same 10-digit SIM card.

The company has also signed agreements with 12 mobile operators in India for providing auto-roaming facilities covering four metros and seven states.
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Ceat Financial in trouble?
Calcutta: RPG group company Ceat Financial Services appears to be facing a crisis. The Economic Times in a report said the company has decided to stop accepting further public deposits as part of a risk containment measure. It has also started securitising some of the old loan assets.

The company is understood to have given a commitment to the Reserve Bank of India to bring down the deposit liability figure to a manageable level within a proposed timeframe. The RBI had recently inspected the company's Mumbai office.
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Computer Associates plans expansion
New Delhi: Computer Associates of the US is planning to expand its product profile in India. The $45 billion business software group will bring new product lines into India, such as accounting solutions to help small and large businesses.

The company is moving to its new headquarters in Mumbai, and plans to double its staff strength. It has so far invested about $15 to $20 million India. It will bring in a total of $100 million in the first five years of its operations.
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Autoriders into gold business
Mumbai: Autoriders, the Mukesh Patel-promoted company, which is one of the biggest auto dealers in India, is planning a foray into the gold trade. One of the arms of his company, Autoriders Finance, is diversifying into the gold and silver business.

The company has signed a MoU with Geekay Exim for assaying, refining and marketing of gold and silver. Geekay Exim has a technical collaboration with Handyharman and Hallmark of the US, owners of six refineries and with 35 per cent market share in the gold and silver refining.

Meanwhile, Autoriders is understood to be facing problems in its main business. Recently Telco has stopped supplying commercial vehicles to the company on account of outstanding dues. Autoriders has also given up its Maruti dealership, managed by sister company Enpak Motors. Autoriders now sells only Telco's passenger car, the Indica.
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Revlon fails to find a buyer
New York: The management of Revlon has so far failed to find a buyer for the company. This, it feels, will deepen the company's financial troubles.

The debt-ridden company, controlled by Ron Perelman, has for months been looking for a buyer for all or part of its businesses. The company said it continues its efforts to find a potential buyer, and expects to sell its professional haircare and Latin American business for more than $500 million by March 2000. It wants to keep its cosmetics and fragrance businesses and brand names such as Almay, Ultima II and Charlie.
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Glaxo faces hurdles in anti-flu drug
London: Glaxo Wellcome, one of the largest drug makers of the world, is persuading the government to make Relenza, its anti-flu drug, available on the National Health Service. It is arguing its case with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, or Nice. Nice is understood to have asked for more data on Relenza, in the wake of Roche introducing its anti-flu drug Tamiflu.
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Alta Vista, Health Central in pact
Palo Alto: Web search engine Alta Vista has signed a three-year $65 million deal with Health Central.com, under which the health website will provide the content for Alta Vista's planned health channel.

A small portion of the amount will be paid in Health Central.com equity and a portion will be contingent on the amount of traffic driven to the new health channel site.
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Delay in Daewoo plan may affect economy
Seoul: A month after creditors decided to break up Daewoo, the debt-ridden conglomerate analysts see little progress in restructuring of the group. There has been no move to resolve the debts of the group's affiliates, and this deadlock may hit the entire Korean economy, analysts feel.

A government source said five of the 12 Daewoo group affiliates now under debt rescheduling programmes will be separated from the parent group by end-October.

The delay in resolving the problems has also adversely affected the markets, with the Korea Composite Stock Price Index closing at 839.35 on 1 October, 10.9 per cent down from the previous week's closing.
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