Merck settles IRS dispute for $2.3 billion

Merck & Co., mired in multibillion litigation over its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, has eliminated another legal headache, resolving several tax disputes with the Internal Revenue Service by agreeing to a $2.3 billion settlement.

In announcing the agreement Wednesday, the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company said the settlement resolves all outstanding tax disputes with the IRS, covering the years 1993 through 2006. Merck had faced potential taxes, interest and penalties totaling as much as $3.8 billion, but the agreement apparently reduced that amount.

Neither Merck nor the IRS would discuss the reduction.

The IRS said in its own statement that the settlement resolves all issues in dispute for the years 1993-2001.

“It can’t be seen as anything but positive” for Merck to resolve the case, said analyst Steve Brozak of WPP Securities.

Merck still has a $1.76 billion tax dispute with Canadian authorities and has filed an appeal with the Canada Revenue Agency that is expected to be reviewed this year, spokesman Raymond Kerins said.

•The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can continue its disability discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., an appeals court has ruled.

The EEOC filed the suit in January 2004 claiming that Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it refused to hire a man who has cerebral palsy.

In August 2005, a federal judge in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri granted summary judgment to the world’s largest retailer, saying that the EEOC did not present sufficient evidence in favor of Steven J. Bradley Jr. The EEOC appealed, which led to Tuesday’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

•Monster Worldwide Inc. has reached a deal with The New York Times Co. to sell and display help-wanted advertising online, landing the Internet job search provider a key ally as it expands its partnerships with traditional media companies.

Monster had long been seen as a threat to newspaper publishers, which have been struggling to stem the losses of their highly profitable classified advertising business to online rivals, which in addition to Monster include Yahoo Inc.’s HotJobs and the free site Craigslist.

That began to change last August after Monster signed a deal with the new owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News to run the online job search sites of those newspapers.