Recap: Britain balks as rest of E.U. forges fiscal pact

A landmark summit of the 27-nation European Union ended Friday with a pledge among the nations to work toward a new treaty binding them more closely together in a pact to save the euro. ¶ Only Britain bowed out. Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative who cherishes the pound and looks askance at heavy-handed European regulations in British affairs, vetoed the pact. The leaders of Germany and France, the anchors of the 17 nations that share the euro and the two largest E.U. economies, hailed the accord as a “breakthrough.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared herself indifferent to whether Britain signed. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was less delicate. “You can’t on the one hand ask not to be in the euro and at the same time wish to be part of all the decisions affecting a currency you don’t want, and often criticize,” he said.

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Billionaire Philip Falcone and his hedge fund , Harbinger Capital Partners, were notified that they may be sued by the SEC for alleged “violations of the federal securities laws’ anti-fraud provisions.” Falcone gained fame with bets against the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

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Goldman Sachs plans to issue four certificates of deposit linked to stocks as record-low interest rates drive investor demand for the higher-yielding CDs. The structured CDs are the bank’s first.

MF Global’s customers can receive a $2.2 billion distribution, allowing them to recover 72 percent of what they lost when the brokerage failed, a judge ruled. Jon Corzine, the firm’s former chief executive, testified at a House Agriculture hearing last week that he didn’t know where $1.2 billion in missing customer money went. A bad bet on European bonds sank the fund.

HSBC sued the MF Global brokerage trustee to establish whether he or another person is the rightful owner of gold bars worth about $850,000 and silver bars underlying contracts between the brokerage and a client.

Bank of America agreed to pay $315 million to settle claims by investors that they were misled about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit. The class-action lawsuit was led by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi pension fund.

Verizon Wireless is blocking Google’s Wallet software from running on the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, citing “security and user experience.” Verizon and rivals AT&T and T-Mobile are part of a consortium called ISIS that is planning its own payment system.

Toyota cut its profit forecast for this fiscal year by 56 percent after Thailand’s worst floods in decades disrupted output of Camry and Prius vehicles. “It’s acts of God after other acts of God,” one analyst said.

The European Commission, an antitrust watchdog, is investigating whether Apple helped five major publishing houses illegally raise prices for e-books when it launched its iPad tablet and iBookstore in 2010. Apple was the first retailer that allowed publishers to move to agency agreements, which let publishers set the price that online bookshops sell e-books to consumers. The Justice Department is also investigating.

McGraw-Hill, which owns ratings firm Standard & Poor’s, says it will cut 550 jobs at its education arm and freeze all employee pensions next year as part of $100 million in cuts it is making as it splits into two companies.

General Motors, weeks after ratifying a new labor contract with the United Auto Workers, said hourly union employees achieved vehicle-quality targets and will be eligible for about $12 million in bonuses, or $250 per worker.

Hewlett-Packard will turn its WebOS software into an open-source project, aiming to get outside developers to embrace the struggling operating system it acquired in last year’s $1.2 billion purchase of Palm.

Clearwire, the struggling cellular network operator, said it plans to offer $300 million worth of Class A shares in a new public offering, the latest step in a rescue plan to keep the company afloat. Sprint Nextel, Clearwire’s biggest investor, has agreed to buy a matching amount in Class B shares.

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