Mercedes CEO sees difficult year
Stuttgart, Germany The head of DaimlerChrysler AG’s troubled Mercedes division has warned that market conditions will worsen this year, further burdening the luxury car unit.
In an e-mail to employees obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Mercedes Chief Executive Eckhard Cordes said that increasing competition in the premium car sector has resulted in “enormous price pressure.”
On Thursday, DaimlerChrysler said its fourth-quarter net profit fell 63 percent to 526 million euros ($712 million) from 1.4 billion euros a year ago as Mercedes, once its star division, struggled with quality problems and the dollar’s weakness against the euro, which hurt its results in the key U.S. market.
Goodyear to supply A350 parts
Charlotte, N.C. The European-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus has chosen aerospace and defense parts supplier Goodrich Corp. to provide the engine coverings and thrust reversers for its proposed A350 aircraft, designed as a rival to Boeing Co.’s 787.
The contract announced Friday is expected to be worth approximately $6 billion for Goodrich over 20 years.
Goodrich already has contracts from Chicago-based Boeing for the 787’s engine coverings and thrust reversers, as well as other systems including wheels and electric braking system, exterior lighting and the cargo handling system.
The 787 Dreamliner, formerly known as the 7E7, is to go into service in 2008, while Toulouse, France-based Airbus expects to put its A350 into service by 2010.
Molson Coors to close Memphis plant
Denver Only days after completing a merger that created the world’s fifth biggest brewer, Molson Coors Brewing Co. said Friday it plans to close a Tennessee plant in early 2007 in a cost-cutting move at a facility that employs 410 people.
The Memphis plant, which has a brewing capacity of 3 million barrels a year, produces Coors Light for export, plus Zima XXX, Keystone Light and Blue Moon. It is one of 19 breweries owned by Molson Coors which employs about 15,000 people.
Movie file-swapping suit settled
Los Angeles
Hollywood movie studios have settled a copyright lawsuit against a Web site operator they say had helped people find pirated copies of films for download.
The Web site, LokiTorrent.com, hosted “torrents,” or file markers used by online file-swapping programs like BitTorrent to comb the Internet for other computer users sharing a given file.
Edward Webber, who ran the site, agreed to pay a “substantial” fine to settle the lawsuit and agreed to turn over copies of his computer server logs and data, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday.
Those records might prove to be even more valuable to the trade group as a way to ferret out individual computer users who had visited the site, which had more than 750,000 registered users downloading thousands of files, said John Malcolm, head of the MPAA’s antipiracy division.