NATIONAL

MCI OWNERS SEEK HIGHER VERIZON OFFER AFTER SLIM SALE

Verizon Communications’ agreement to buy Carlos Slim’s stake in MCI for more than it is offering other shareholders angered some of MCI’s largest owners and put pressure on MCI’s board to seek a higher offer. Mr. Slim, the world’s fourth-richest man, said he will sell his 13% stake in MCI to Verizon for $25.72, making Verizon the largest shareholder in MCI. Verizon, the biggest American telephone company, will pay $2.62 a share more for Mr. Slim’s stake than the $23.10 it offered as part of a $7.51 billion agreement to buy MCI. Bill Miller of Legg Mason and Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, which are among MCI’s top 10 shareholders, wrote separately to the company’s board demanding that directors seek an equal price for all investors. Verizon’s purchase surprised Qwest Communications International, which made a rival $8.94 billion offer and also was trying to negotiate with Mr. Slim, people familiar with the matter said. Messrs. Cooperman and Miller have said they will vote against Verizon’s $23.10 offer.

– Bloomberg News

MICROSOFT TO PAY GATEWAY $150 MILLION TO END LEGAL CLAIM

Microsoft agreed to pay Gateway $150 million in the first settlement of a computer maker’s claim that it was harmed when the world’s largest software maker abused its Windows monopoly. The settlement is a byproduct of the government’s 1998 antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, which led a U.S. judge to conclude the following year that the software giant bullied Gateway, IBM, and other computer makers to promote its Internet Explorer Web browser. The agreement with Gateway averted a possible suit. Microsoft settled the government’s lawsuit by agreeing to give computer makers freedom to promote competing software. Microsoft last year paid Sun Microsystems $1.6 billion to end a 10-year feud and last month agreed to pay $60 million to settle a patent and antitrust dispute with Burst.com.

– Bloomberg News

IN THE COURTS

MARTHA STEWART WON’T RECEIVE NEW SENTENCE, JUDGE SAYS

Martha Stewart must continue to serve five months in home confinement, a federal judge said yesterday in refusing to modify her 2004 sentence for obstruction of justice.

Stewart, founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, had asked U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum to cut her term of house arrest from five months to roughly 45 days.

Stewart, convicted last year in New York federal court, has already served five months in prison and more than a month of house arrest.

Judge Cedarbaum refused Stewart’s request, saying the initial sentence of 10 months split between prison and home detention was “reasonable and appropriate.” Stewart must now serve the remaining four months at her Bedford, N.Y., estate.

“Home detention is imposed as alternative to imprisonment,” Judge Cedarbaum wrote in a three-page ruling yesterday. “It is designed to be confining.”

An appeals court last month ordered Stewart re-sentenced because the federal sentencing guidelines under which she was punished are no longer binding on U.S. judges.

– Bloomberg News