NATIONAL

DAIMLERCHRYSLER IS TOLD TO PAY $98 MILLION, LAWYER SAYS A jury ordered DaimlerChrysler AG to pay $98 million in damages to a couple whose 8-month-old baby died when a Dodge Caravan seatback failed in a crash, according to the family’s lawyer. The jury in Nashville, Tenn., awarded $98 million in punitive damages to punish the company yesterday after saying earlier that the family was entitled to $7.5 million to compensate them for injuries suffered in the crash, said a lawyer for the family, Jim Butler. There have been more than 500 deaths and injuries in cases involving allegations about collapsing seats in Chryslers, according to the president of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, Clarence Ditlow. A jury last year hit DaimlerChrysler with a $53.75 million verdict after a seat bracket broke in a Dodge Ram pickup, leaving a woman a quadriplegic. A DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman, Mary Gauthier, declined to comment until she could speak to the company’s attorneys. Joshua Flax was in the backseat of a van driven by his grandfather when the collision occurred in June 2001.The front passenger seat fell backward after the van was rear-ended. The front passenger’s head hit Joshua’s and fractured the infant’s skull. Joshua died at the hospital the next day, according to Butler. His parents sued in Davidson County, Tennessee, Circuit Court a year later.

– Bloomberg News

NEARLY 8 MILLION WIRELESS USERS RETAINED CELL NUMBERS Nearly 8 million mobile-phone users have switched carriers and kept their cell numbers since a new rule allowing that flexibility went into effect one year ago, the Federal Communications Commission disclosed yesterday. Almost 750,000 more people have moved either a home or office phone number to a cell phone, the FCC told The Associated Press on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the agency’s “number portability” order. The agency planned to report today that by the end of October, 7.8 million people had taken advantage of the rule, which took effect on Nov. 24, 2003. The numbers suggest that millions of cell-phone users may have been frustrated with their cell-phone service but were hesitant to switch providers because they didn’t want to give up a phone number that was familiar to friends, business associates and family. However, the tally is well short of many forecasts issued a year ago, some of which predicted that up to 30 million people might switch carriers in the first year. None of the national carriers has disclosed specific numbers on customers gained or lost, but widespread reports throughout the industry have proclaimed Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. the biggest winners. The biggest loser is believed to have been AT &T Wireless Services Inc., which was acquired last month by Cingular Wireless to form the nation’s biggest cell phone company with 47.25 million subscribers.

– Associated Press

REGIONAL

SIKORSKY ANNOUNCES $4.2 BILLION DEAL WITH CANADA STRATFORD, CONN. – Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced yesterday it will deliver 28 maritime helicopters to the Canadian Navy in a deal valued at $4.2 billion. Delivery of the H-92 helicopters is scheduled to begin in 2008. The helicopters are equipped for anti-submarine missions, can land aboard a ship and be folded up, and be stored in a shipboard hangar. The helicopters also will be equipped to perform surface surveillance and control, subsurface surveillance and control, and utility operations that include search and rescue, passenger and cargo transfer, medical evacuations, and tactical transport. General Dynamics Canada, based in Ottawa, is responsible for the H-92 systems integration and will furnish an entirely Canadian-developed and -built mission data management system. Sikorsky, based in Stratford, is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp.

– Associated Press

MARKETS

CRUDE HITS $50 BUT TOUCHY MARKET QUASHES RALLY Crude oil futures in New York settled higher yesterday, but off earlier highs above $50 a barrel, as uncertainty about American petroleum supplies left traders quick to take profit. Benchmark light, sweet crude futures for January climbed well above $50 a barrel for the first time in nearly three weeks before settling at $48.94 a barrel, up 30 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude for January settled up 7 cents at $44.45 a barrel, after touching a high of $45.92 on the International Petroleum Exchange. Prices ratcheted higher on concerns about American crude and refined-product inventories, the declining value of the American dollar, and fresh interruptions in Iraq oil exports, traders said. But market participants sold off the brunt of the gains amid expectations of across-the-board increases in crude and product inventories in U.S. inventory data due out Wednesday. “It’s like a roller coaster,” said Fadel Gheit, senior vice president of oil and gas research for Oppenheimer and Co., which provides brokerage service in New York. “There’s no question in my mind that speculators have complete control of this market.” As the American dollar fell to an all-time low against the euro, commodity funds and investment banks bought crude contracts to hedge their exposure, traders said. Movements in oil prices and the dollar are often inversely proportional.

– Dow Jones Newswires