IN THE COURTS

KUMAR PLEADS NOT GUILTY

The former CEO of Computer Associates International Inc. pleaded not guilty to federal securities fraud and other charges yesterday in a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the Long Island business software maker. Sanjay Kumar, 42, was charged in a 10-count indictment announced Wednesday with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements to law enforcement officers.

Also pleading not guilty to the charges in the indictment was the company’s former head of worldwide sales, Stephen Richards.

According to the indictment, Mr. Kumar was so involved with adding revenue to a financial quarter even after it closed that he flew to Paris in July 1999 to finalize a deal and personally signed a contract that had been backdated. The indictment also charges that executives instructed salespeople to complete deals after the quarter had closed and “cleaned up” contracts by removing time stamps from faxes. Both men were ordered to post $5 million personal recognizance bonds, surrender their passports, and limit their travel to the United States. Their next court date was set for November 23.

– Associated Press

RETAIL

ESTEE LAUDER TO OFFER DONALD TRUMP FRAGRANCE

Real estate mogul Donald Trump, already the star of a television show based on his business life, is lending his name to a new scent from Estee Lauder Cos.

“Donald Trump, The Fragrance” will be sold in Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s department stores starting in mid-November, New York-based Estee Lauder said in a statement. The maker of Clinique and Bobbi Brown cosmetics didn’t disclose financial terms of the multiyear agreement. Mr. Trump, whose casino and hotel business has lost money for the past eight years, is tapping the celebrity status he began cultivating in the 1980s. The 58-year-old billionaire stars in NBC’s “The Apprentice,” a program featuring contestants vying for a job with Mr. Trump. He’s also lent his name to a line of men’s clothing and has a book coming out next month. The fragrance will be packaged in a skyscraper-shaped bottle and carry a suggested retail price of $60 for 3.4 ounces.

– Bloomberg News

REGULATION

SEC SAYS GE SHOULD HAVE DISCLOSED WELCH’S PERKS

General Electric Co. violated the law by failing to fully disclose to investors the many perks lavished on its retired chief executive Jack Welch, the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday.

The millions of dollars in benefits included unlimited personal use of GE’s planes, exclusive use of an $11 million apartment in New York City, a chauffeured limousine, a leased Mercedes, office space, financial services, bodyguard security, and security systems for his homes.

In a settlement involving one of the world’s largest companies and one of Wall Street’s most admired chief executives, the SEC did not fine GE. But the agency won a promise from GE to fully disclose such benefits from now on.

“Shareholders have a clear interest in knowing how public companies compensate their top executives,” said an associate director of the SEC’s enforcement division, Paul R. Berger. “Shareholders have a right to see how that’s being used.”

Mr. Welch, who retired in 2001, said his benefits were disclosed, but not to the extent SEC felt was necessary.

“I’m pleased that this is settled with no financial ramifications to GE,” Mr. Welch said. “For me it’s the end of a chapter.”

GE, based in Fairfield, did not admit or deny the findings of the settlement.

Details of Mr. Welch’s perks emerged during his divorce case and amid a wave of corporate scandals. Mr. Welch paid back many of the perks and now pays for use of aircraft and other services – “everything except an office and an assistant,” GE spokesman Gary Sheffer said. The benefits were part of an employment and retirement agreement Mr. Welch reached with GE in 1996.

– Associated Press

NATIONAL

WHITE HOUSE MAY RELEASE RESERVE OIL

The Bush administration may lend refiners oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after Hurricane Ivan disrupted Gulf of Mexico shipping and production, lifting prices toward a record and threatening the economy.

“We’ve always said that the SPR was set up to protect against physical disruptions of oil supplies such as national emergencies or natural disasters, and not to manipulate prices for political purposes,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. “Certainly Hurricane Ivan had an effect on the temporary supply of oil imports and production.”

President Bush rejected calls this summer from airlines, truckers, and shippers seeking a release of oil to ease prices near $50 a barrel. Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry said in March that Mr. Bush should end his policy of filling the reserve as prices climbed and that consumers are being squeezed by high gasoline prices. Mr. McClellan said the refiners requested “small quantities” for a “short period of time.” He declined to be more specific and referred questions to the Energy Department, which is negotiating with the refiners and will announce a decision in the near future.

– Bloomberg News

TRUMP PROPOSES TAKING COMPANY PRIVATE

A proposed bailout of Donald Trump’s casino company has been shelved, and Mr. Trump now says he may take the company private. Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts and investment banker DLJ Merchant Banking Partners – which announced the bailout plan last month as part of a prepackaged Trump Hotels bankruptcy – said late Wednesday they had terminated discussions “by mutual agreement.” In a prepared statement, Mr. Trump said the company was pursuing restructuring proposals with its bondholders and that it “may pursue a potential privatization of the company.”

Neither Mr. Trump himself nor Trump Hotels Executive Vice President Scott Butera returned calls seeking comment yesterday. DLJ officials weren’t talking, either. The company, a private equity arm of Credit Suisse First Boston, had no comment, according to a company spokeswoman, Victoria Harmon. Mr. Trump has been searching for a way to save his cash-strapped casino company for months. The company, which operates three casinos in Atlantic City, has $1.8 billion in debt and is so overburdened with interest payments it has been unable to finance improvements or expansions to keep up with Atlantic City competitors.

– Associated Press

ECONOMY

FED SAYS FACTORS CAUSING SLOW ECONOMY WERE ‘SHORT-LIVED’

Federal Reserve policy-makers said the slowing in the economy earlier this year was due to higher energy costs and fewer consumer purchases, developments that would prove “short-lived,” as they voted unanimously on August 10 to raise interest rates, minutes of the meeting showed. Members of the Federal Open Market Committee, who raised the overnight bank lending rate a quarter point to 1.5%, also cited a need for “significant cumulative policy tightening” to restore interest rates to a level that would foster growth without inflation. The timing and pace of that tightening “would depend importantly on incoming economic data,” the minutes said.

– Bloomberg News

INTERNATIONAL

AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER SAYS STRONGER RULES NEEDED

The European Union must strengthen antitrust laws to check the growing power of retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tesco Plc., and Carrefour SA to determine food prices, E.U. Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler said.

Dairy farmers in Britain, the E.U.’s third-largest dairy producer, blame the pricing power of big supermarkets and the country’s top four dairy processors for loss of income. They receive among the lowest prices in the E.U. for their milk, which in supermarkets is cheaper than branded bottled water.

“It’s a complex question whether our competition rules are good enough. It needs, first of all, a lot of legal analysis,” Mr. Fischler said in an interview at a British dairy show near Coventry, in central England. “Concentration among the retailers is going on everywhere in the E.U., and as long as we respect competition rules, we cannot criticize them.”

– Bloomberg News