Newspapers Online Overnight The Age / Australia T

HP says it had to write off $5bn after its $10bn (£6bn) purchase, because Autonomy had inflated its value.

Autonomy's ex-boss, Mike Lynch, told HP's shareholders the US firm was "not just smearing us, but misleading you".

In response, HP said it had uncovered "numerous accounting irregularities" before the sale.

The UK's Serious Fraud Office and accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, and the US Department of Justice are investigating the sale. 'Lied to'

The US computer giant's allegations included "accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures" at Autonomy.

In an open letter to HP's shareholders, Mr Lynch asked how HP could "justify" declining to show his management team the allegations or evidence against them, because they were with regulators, while it had "selectively disclosed" some documents and emails to the media.

HP's spokesperson said: "HP reported those irregularities to appropriate civil and criminal regulators in the US and UK. HP continues to co-operate in ongoing investigations by those regulators."

Mr Lynch said Ms Whitman had made "incendiary and defamatory" accusations on behalf of her firm.

In November 2012, HP said Autonomy had made a "wilful effort to mislead".

At the time, HP chief executive Meg Whitman said her company had done a "whole host" of due diligence but "when you're lied to, it's hard to find".

Comcast shares slipped just over 1 percent, trading at $49.68 slightly before midday.

"We are part of a multistate group reviewing the proposed transaction along with the U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division," the Florida attorney general's office said in an email sent late on Tuesday.

It was not known how many states had joined the task force.

Indiana officials were also looking at the deal to determine "the potential impact in Indiana." Erin Reece, a spokeswoman for the Indiana attorney general's office, did not say whether Indiana was part of the multistate group.

Pennsylvania, where Comcast is headquartered, was "reviewing the case independently," said Joe Peters, a spokesman for the s state's attorney general's office.

The attorneys general group is focused on broadband rather than cable in assessing the $45.2 billion deal, according to a source familiar with the effort who was not authorized to speak on the record.

Comcast had no comment on the states' review of its proposed deal.

Comcast has argued the combination would not reduce competition because the two cable providers do not compete in any markets. The company pledged to divest 3 million subscribers, so the combined customer base of 30 million would represent just under 30 percent of the U.S. pay television video market.

A combined Comcast and Time Warner Cable would also have roughly one-third share of the high-speed Internet market.

Comcast, which is the No. 1 U.S. cable provider, said on February 13 it had agreed to acquire No. 4 Time Warner Cable.

Shares of Time Warner Cable were down 0.4 percent at $135.98 near midday.

The deal generated criticism from some lawmakers and consumer groups concerned that there were already too few options for Americans signing up for broadband or cable service.

Content providers, the producers of television shows and movies, also worry that a merger of the two cable giants will mean too few buyers for their products, and that those buyers will be able to push their fees down.

Comcast, which owns large amounts of content after its 2011 merger with NBC Universal, and Time Warner Cable paid nearly $14 billion to content companies last year for the rights to show their films, television shows and sporting events.

The involvement of states typically gives the Justice Department additional resources - and sometimes creates additional pressure - to ensure that a proposed transaction complies with antitrust law.

The website that has been put in place by hackers asks users to enter their Apple IDs - the credentials needed to access services like Apple's iTunes.

A second screen then asks users to enter further personal information, including credit card details.

EA said it was investigating the problem.

Paul Mutton, from Netcraft, the internet security company that uncovered the hack, said in a blog that it was likely a vulnerability in an online calendar application hosted on the web server had been exploited by the attackers.

The calendar based on the web server was an old version of software that had since been updated, he said.

"The mere presence of old software can often provide sufficient incentive for a hacker to target one system over another, and to spend more time looking for additional vulnerabilities," he wrote.

Once a user has entered their Apple ID and password on the fake website they are then asked to verify their name, date of birth, phone number and credit card details among other information.

Users were then directed to the legitimate Apple ID website, said Mr Mutton. It was reported earlier in the year that other servers belonging to EA had been hacked, causing problems for users trying to log on to online games and services.

A hacking group known as Derp posted a tweet claiming responsibility for that attack.

Mr Mutton said he had reported the most recent problems to Electronic Arts but it appeared that the website still remained online.

In a statement to the BBC, EA said: "Privacy and security are of the utmost importance to us, and we are currently investigating this report."

Michael Sutton, from security research firm Zscaler, said that hackers using legitimate websites to host malicious content was now the norm.

"Social engineering attacks always involve an element of communication - the victim must be tricked into performing an action such as providing data, clicking on a link, downloading a file, et cetera. Attackers have learned that it's far easier to simply infect an already popular web property than to attempt communication with victims directly," he said.

Users should check that websites are secure before entering any private information, says guidance from Get Safe Online.

They should look for a padlock symbol in the browser window frame and they should check that the web address begins with https - the "s" stands for secure.

The dramatic seizure came as Russia and the West dug in for a long confrontation over Moscow's annexation of Crimea, with the United States and Europe groping for ways to increase pressure on a defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"As long as Russia continues on this dark path, they will face increasing political and economic isolation," said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, referring to reports of armed attacks against Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea.

Biden was in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, part of a quick trip to reassure Baltic allies worried about what an emboldened Russia might mean for their nations. Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, are NATO members.

"There is an attempt, using brutal force, to redraw borders of the European states and to destroy the post-war architecture of Europe," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon meets Putin in Moscow on Thursday and travels to Kiev on Friday. He will urge a peaceful end to a crisis that began when Ukraine's president abandoned a trade pact with the European Union and turned instead to Moscow, prompting violent street protests that led to his overthrow.

Russian lawmakers raced to ratify a treaty making Crimea part of Russia by the end of the week, despite threats of further sanctions from Washington and Brussels.

The Russian military moved swiftly to neutralize any threat of armed resistance in Crimea.

"This morning they stormed the compound. They cut the gates open, but I heard no shooting," said Oleksander Balanyuk, a captain in the navy, walking out of the compound in his uniform and carrying his belongings.

"This thing should have been solved politically. Now all I can do is stand here at the gate. There is nothing else I can do," he told Reuters, appearing ashamed and downcast.

Ukrainian military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said the commander of the Ukrainian navy, Admiral Serhiy Haiduk, was driven away by what appeared to be Russian special forces.

In Washington, the White House condemned Russian moves to seize Ukrainian military installations, saying they are creating a dangerous situation. NATO accused Russia of trying to "redraw the map of Europe".

MIXED FEELINGS

Russia sent thousands of soldiers to Crimea in the buildup to a weekend referendum in which the Russian-majority region voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Moscow, reflecting national loyalties and hopes of higher wages.

Joe Tsai, the Alibaba Group Holding executive in charge of plans for the highly anticipated deal, only abandoned hope of a Hong Kong listing in the last few weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The company's shareholding structure, giving senior managers sway over board appointments, would not pass muster with local regulators.

The final straw was the snail's pace of a public consultation process of reviewing local listing rules on which Alibaba had pinned its hopes, the people said. That delay, coupled with a rush of Alibaba rivals seeking to tap the frothy U.S. tech market, forced the company's hand in the end, the people said.

Last Sunday, after nearly a year of talks with Hong Kong regulators and stock exchange officials, Alibaba said it will list shares in the United States in a deal expected to exceed Facebook Inc's $16 billion offering in 2012.

"Alibaba realized this was not a battle that they could have won within the time frame they were looking to float the company," said Keith Pogson, managing partner for financial services at consulting firm EY in Hong Kong. "So they decided to find a home that was more accommodating with such structures."

Alibaba's choice is a blow to Hong Kong's financial industry, in terms of lost prestige, fees and trading volumes. The absence of a large, dynamic tech company will sting the Hong Kong exchange as it tries to diversify its publicly traded stocks away from Greater China financial and property companies, bolstering its status as a global financial centre.

Hong Kong's loss is the U.S. financial industry's gain. The deal has the potential to bring in about $300 million in advisory fees alone for the banks involved, based on an estimated 1.75 percent commission.

The saga pitted a Chinese tech juggernaut and its financial advisors against securities officials guarding rigid shareholding rules meant to protect retail investor interests with a one share-one vote guarantee, in a city where family-run businesses and tycoons hold heavy influence.

"It's a shame that Hong Kong lost the deal, but we lost the deal for good reasons," said EY's Pogson. "So we should congratulate the Hong Kong regulators for sticking to their guns on values, for showing that Hong Kong is a robust market where these kind of issues do matter and people care about investor protection."

Emilio Gamboa, Senate leader of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said the so-called secondary laws for the government's overhaul of the phone and television markets will be presented this week.

The last regular working day for Congress this week is Thursday, and a PRI official told Reuters that was the day the secondary laws were likely to be presented.

According to a draft of the reform seen by Reuters and dated March 19, the bill will give the country's new telecoms regulator sweeping powers to police dominant telecommunications companies, right down to the prices and discounts they offer.

The Federal Institute for Telecommunications (IFT), which was created by last year's reform, will be able to force phone companies to seek approval every year for interconnection and infrastructure-sharing terms, the draft showed.

The settlement between the Justice Department and Toyota includes an admission by the auto manufacturer that it misled American consumers about two different problems that caused cars to accelerate even as drivers tried to slow them down.

The agreement comes as General Motors is also under investigation over its handling of an ignition switch failure linked to a dozen deaths. GM recalled more than 1.6 million vehicles more than a decade after first noticing the issue. Top officials said the Toyota settlement could serve as a template for similar cases.

"My hope and expectation is that this resolution will serve a model for how to approach future cases involving similarly situated companies," Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference on Wednesday, though he declined to discuss GM specifically.

The deal with Toyota was led by the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, the same prosecutors investigating GM's handling of its ignition-switch recall. GM also faces probes by Congress and safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as at least three proposed class-action lawsuits related to economic losses suffered by consumers.

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra has been credited for apologizing quickly for the slow recall and promising to focus on consumer safety, something Toyota failed to do initially when its unintended acceleration issue first arose.

However, GM is still coming under fire for not addressing the defective switches when they were discovered.

The Toyota deal, which had been expected, resolves issues that have dogged the company since at least 2007 and have been linked to at least 5 deaths. The auto maker still faces hundreds of private lawsuits over the problems.

Prosecutors filed criminal charges against the company but agreed to defer and drop them if the company allows an independent monitor to review its safety practices and if it abides by the terms of the deal.

Toyota is "effectively on probation for three years," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office conducted the investigation, said at the news conference.

"It cared more about savings than safety and more about its own brand and bottom line than the truth," Bharara said.

In announcing its view on future rates after a two-day policy meeting, the Fed also dropped a set of guideposts it was using to help the public anticipate when it would finally start bumping overnight borrowing costs up from zero.

It said, however, that dropping a 6.5 percent unemployment rate as a guideline in deciding when to raise rates does not represent a change in its policy intentions. The Fed said it would instead consider a wide range of economic indicators when deciding the future path of overnight rates.

The central bank noted in its statement that its embrace of easy money policies could continue even after the Fed achieves its goals of full employment and 2 percent inflation.

In a news conference Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Fed officials cited "the residual impacts of the financial crisis" for this, with some noting "the potential growth rate of the economy may be lower at least for a time."

Even so, the majority of Fed policymakers expect overnight interest rates to rise in 2015. That, coupled with uncertainty about changes in the Fed's forward guidance, pushed U.S. stock prices lower and U.S. government yields higher.

The unease in markets "might be a sign that people think Yellen will tighten sooner rather than later, or that inflation could come into the market if the Fed keeps rates low well past 6.5 percent (unemployment)," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at Rockwell Securities in New York.

The central bank proceeded with its well-telegraphed reductions to its massive bond-buying stimulus, announcing it would cut its monthly purchases of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to $55 billion from $65 billion.

Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota dissented, saying that dropping the unemployment threshold could hurt the credibility of the Fed's commitment to return inflation to 2 percent.

MEASURED WIND DOWN

The decision to continue to scale back its stimulus keeps the Fed on track for the measured wind down laid out by Yellen's predecessor, Ben Bernanke. The Fed repeated that it plans to continue trimming the asset purchases in "measured steps" as long as labor conditions continue to improve and inflation shows signs of rising back toward the Fed's 2-percent goal.

The Fed's assessment of the U.S. economy chalked up recent weakness partly to adverse weather.

Google said it was partnering with several consumer electronics and technology companies, including Samsung Electronics Co, LG Electronics and Intel Corp, as well as with fashion company Fossil Group to develop the new line of watches.

Google said the effort to extend Android to watches is called Android Wear.

"We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible with mobile technology," Google said in a post on its official blog on Tuesday. "That's why we're so excited about wearables—they understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word."

A video posted on Google's blog showed people speaking into their watches to check sports scores, control music, send replies to text messages and even open their home garages.

Google's Android operating system is used in more than three out every four smartphones sold worldwide.

The world's No.1 Internet search engine, Google has also been developing Google Glass, a small stamp-sized screen attached to a pair of eyeglass frames.

The tech giant is bringing back the fourth-generation iPad, which includes a Retina Display and A6X processor. It joins the iPad Air, the original iPad Mini and the Mini model with Retina Display.

The settlement ends seven years of litigation that drew wide attention from Hollywood, the music industry and Internet companies, and which tested the reach of a federal law designed to thwart piracy while letting people find entertainment online.

"This settlement reflects the growing collaborative dialogue between our two companies on important opportunities, and we look forward to working more closely together," Google and Viacom said in a joint statement.

Terms were not disclosed. No money changed hands, a person close to the matter said. The person was not authorized to discuss the settlement's terms.

Viacom had originally filed a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube and others in 2007, and eventually accused the Google unit of illegally broadcasting 79,000 copyrighted videos on its website between 2005 and 2008.

Based in New York, Viacom is controlled by media mogul Sumner Redstone, and owns cable networks such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon as well as the Paramount movie studio.

Google is based in Mountain View, California. It paid about $1.65 billion for YouTube in 2006.

APPEAL AVERTED

Tuesday's settlement was announced 11 months after U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan rejected Viacom's damages claims over YouTube's alleged posting of clips from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "South Park," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and other programs that viewers had uploaded.

Stanton concluded that YouTube didn't have to constantly scour its website for infringing videos, so long as it removed such videos after receiving demands from copyright owners.

Viacom had been appealing that decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, and oral argument had been scheduled for March 24.

"Content providers and service providers are finding it more constructive to work together rather than litigate," said June Besek, a Columbia Law School lecturer and intellectual property specialist. "Content providers need a Google to filter material, and Google needs content to attract people to its websites."

In a fiercely patriotic address to a joint session of parliament in the Kremlin, punctuated by standing ovations, cheers and tears, Putin said Crimea's disputed referendum vote on Sunday, held under Russian military occupation, had shown the overwhelming will of the people to be reunited with Russia.

As the Russian national anthem played, Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty to make Crimea part of the Russian Federation, declaring: "In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia." Parliament is expected to begin ratifying the treaty within days.

Putin later told a flag-waving rally in Red Square beneath the walls of the Kremlin, near where Soviet politburo leaders once took the salute at communist May Day parades, that Crimea has returned to "home port".

Russian forces took control of the Black Sea peninsula in late February following the toppling of Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich by a protest movement sparked by his decision to spurn a far-reaching trade deal with the European Union last November and seek closer ties with Russia.

Putin's speech drew immediate hostile reaction in Kiev and the West.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said the conflict in Crimea had moved from a political to a military stage and he had asked his defense minister to call an urgent meeting with his Russian, U.S. and British counterparts.

"Today Russian soldiers began shooting at Ukrainian servicemen. This is a war crime," he said.

He was referring to an incident at a compound near the Crimean capital Simferopol in which a military spokesman said a Ukrainian officer was shot dead and another injured when "unknown forces, fully equipped and their faces covered" attacked the base.

Witnesses said there was no immediate evidence that Russian soldiers were involved in the shooting. A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman declined immediate comment.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Moscow's action a "land grab" and stressed on a visit to Poland Washington's commitment to defending the security of NATO allies on Russian borders.