Rhode Island company wins judgment
WALTHAM – A Rhode Island Superior Court jury has found against Thermo Electron Corp. in a suit accusing the Massachusetts company and a subsidiary of fraud in connection with the sale of a faulty water treatment system. The jury ordered the defendants to pay $8.1 million in damages. The suit was filed in 1995 by Richard Squizzero, the former president of Allens Manufacturing Co., a Providence metal-finishing business after that company went bankrupt in 1994. Squizzero was reported to be in possession of most of the Allens company assets. A Thermo company spokesperson said that company would appeal the judgment. According to the suit Thermo delivered the treatment system in 1985 for $204,400, but that it lacked an essential part in the system, allowing dangerous copper and nickel residue to spill into the city’s drainage system. As a result the Allens company was fined repeatedly and lost customers. This led to the company’s filing for bankruptcy, the suit alleged.
Community Care to repay pension fund
WELLESLEY – Agreement by Community Care Systems, Inc. to repay $139,036 to employee retirement accounts that was improperly taken from their accounts was reported by the Department of Labor. The department filed suit against CCSI and its chief executive and principal shareholder Frederick Thacher in 1998, charging that employees contributions to their 401(k) retirement plans had been withheld since 1997. The company has operated several psychiatric hospitals in New England, including Charles River Hospital here.
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Independent power firms back bill to change rules
BOSTON – American National Power, Inc., and Energy Management, Inc. joined environmentalists last week in urging passage of a bill that could force five older coal and oil burning power generating plants in Massachusetts out of business. At a hearing before the Natural Resources Committee, representatives of the companies urged passage of the bill that would eliminate a grandfathering clause and require that plants built before 1977 meet by the year 2003 the same Clean Air Act requirements for emissions that are demanded of newer plants. Plants in Somerset, Salem and Cape Cod would be among those affected by the action. The first two are owned by PG&E and the latter by Southern Co. The closing would open a great demand for new sources of power such as those being developed by ANP and EMI in Bellingham and Blackstone in Massachusetts as well as Tiverton, RI. Passage of the bill was opposed at the hearing by several dozen power plant union members.
CMGI, NaviSite in pacts with Dell, Microsoft
ANDOVER — CMGI Inc. said its NaviSite Inc. unit entered into agreements with Dell Computer Corp. and Microsoft Corp. under which the companies will get stakes in NaviSite in exchange for their products. Financial terms were not disclosed. Dell, which receives a 4.9 percent stake in NaviSite, will become the preferred server, storage and computer provider for NaviSite, the Dow Jones News Service said. NaviSite will provide enhanced support for Windows Media Technologies from Microsoft, which gets a 4.4 percent stake. Microsoft also will work with NaviSite to provide enhanced hosting services for some Microsoft servers. CMGI provides marketing services and invests in Internet and interactive media technologies. It had revenues of $91.5 million in 1998.
Software and Internet employed up 75 percent
LOWELL — Ten years ago, Wang Laboratories and other companies in Massachusetts were working hard to build an empire based on high technology and innovative computer hardware. But today, the hardware business has gone “soft” and focus has shifted from products to services. Since many of the high-tech giants like Wang faded away, a new breed of software entrepreneurs has taken advantage of a booming stock market, the availability of investment capital and the success of the Internet. A study by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a privately funded research group, has found that employment in software and Internet companies jumped 75 percent from 1992 to 1997. During the previous five years, the gain was 5 percent. There are now about 2,751 software companies in Massachusetts, up from 800 in 1989, according to the Massachusetts Software Council.
Laid-off workers receive federal grant
NATICK — The U.S. Department of Labor announced a $1.7 million grant to assist about 300 laid-off workers at the Wonder Bread factory in Natick. The bread plant’s parent company, Kansas City, Mo.-based Interstate Brands Corp., announced in December that the plant would close by the fall. Its operations are in the process of being shifted to Biddeford, Maine, and Wayne, N.J. The federal money will help production, manufacturing and assembly line workers get new jobs or receive training to work in other fields. It comes as part of a federal project to help displaced workers who are unlikely to return to their previous industry or occupation.
Attorney General defends Sox CEO’s management
BOSTON — The state attorney general said he has found no wrongdoing in Red Sox CEO John Harrington’s financial stewardship of the team’s charitable foundations. The state looked into the matter after a March report in the Boston Herald that said Harrington made large contributions from the foundation he oversees to charities with whom he and another trustee, William Gutfarb, had personal connections. The paper also claimed that much smaller donations were made to organizations preferred by the late team owners, Tom and Jean Yawkey. Attorney General Tom Reilly, who oversees investigators in the state’s Division of Charities, said a study of the Yawkeys’ wills show that Harrington has wide discretion in allocating funds, and did nothing improper.
