BUSINESS BRIEFS
Continental will add L.A. flight
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Continental Airlines said it will add a daily nonstop flight between Los Angeles and Kahului beginning Feb. 16.
The new route replaces the Houston-Maui service, which will be discontinued. Continental's daily flight CO137 will depart from Los Angeles International Airport at 5:55 p.m., arriving at Kahului, Maui at 9:35 p.m. Flight CO136 will return from Kahului daily at 11:40 p.m., arriving in Los Angeles at 6:35 a.m. the next day.
The nonstop Los Angeles-Maui flight will be in addition to Continental's twice-daily nonstop flights between its Houston hub and Honolulu, its daily nonstop flight between its New York hub at Newark Liberty International Airport and Honolulu, and daily flight between Los Angeles and Honolulu. The airline also operates daily service between Honolulu, Guam and the Marshall Islands.
JUSTICE DROPS ANDERSEN CASE
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department yesterday abandoned its prosecution of Arthur Andersen LLP, walking away from one of the signature cases in its drive to eradicate corporate fraud.
The announcement came six months after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed the accounting firm's 2002 conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to its work for client Enron Corp. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the jury instructions were so broad that jurors could have found Andersen guilty even if officials did not intend to break the law and impede a looming investigation. Andersen's indictment sent clients scrambling for the exits and quickly led the firm to shut its doors — at a cost of 28,000 jobs in the United States.
WARNER WILL PAY IN BRIBERY CASE
ALBANY, N.Y. — Warner Music Group Corp. has agreed to pay $5 million to settle an investigation into payoffs for radio airplay of artists, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said yesterday.
Warner is the second major recording company to reform and settle with Spitzer in a practice the attorney general said was "pervasive." In July, Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to pay $10 million and to stop bribing radio stations to feature artists.
The money that Warner Music has agreed to pay will be distributed by the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to New York state to fund music programs there.
