Company News : Judge won’t block plan for takeover by Whole Foods

A federal judge on Thursday gave a tentative green light to premium grocer Whole Foods Market Inc.’s plan to buy rival Wild Oats Markets Inc., rejecting arguments the deal would stifle competition and lead to higher prices.

The judge denied a request by the Federal Trade Commission to temporarily block the $565 million deal. The government had said it would appeal such a ruling.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman’s reasoning was filed in a 93-page document that was sealed because it contains corporate secrets.

Whole Foods operates 190 stores, while Colorado-based Wild Oats has about 110. Both are relatively small players in the grocery business, but government lawyers said the combined company would essentially corner the industry market on premium and organic food.

Texas-based Whole Foods argued that plenty of other supermarkets, including much larger chains, sell natural and organic food. But FTC lawyers said only Wild Oats provides the kind of competition needed to keep prices in check.

“Skype, the popular computer program that lets its users make long-distance phone calls over the Internet, said Thursday that software problems have left many of its millions of users without service worldwide.

The company, a division of online auction company eBay Inc., said on its Web site that many users cannot log on to the free service. It was not immediately clear how many users were affected, but Skype users in Vietnam, Colombia, Brazil, Germany, Finland and the United States reported difficulties logging on.

“The outage was in effect for most of Thursday with service expected to resume by Friday.

“International Business Machines Corp. and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP have agreed to pay nearly $5.3 million combined to settle allegations that they made improper payments on government technology contracts, the Justice Department said Thursday.

IBM agreed to pay nearly $3 million, while accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will pay $2.3 million.

The agency said both companies solicited, paid money or provided other benefits to several companies, in violation of federal regulations.

The settlement is part of a larger, ongoing federal investigation of three technology companies — Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Accenture Ltd. — that also have been accused of providing kickbacks to federal consultants to get government tech contracts.