BRIEFCASE GAS PRICES DROP FOR EIGHTH WEEK.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

The Los Angeles area posted its eighth straight week of average gasoline price declines Friday, but experts see evidence prices may be leveling off.

The average price of self-serve regular unleaded gasoline in the region was $1.524 per gallon, which is two-tenths of a cent lower than last week's price, 7 cents lower than last month and 15 cents higher than last year.

``Over the past couple of weeks while pump prices moved lower, wholesale gasoline prices have been inching upward - squeezing the profits of retailers,'' said Auto Club spokeswoman Carol Thorp. ``Based on the slim difference between wholesale and retail prices, prices at the pump probably won't go lower for the time being.''

Valencia Bank's buyout complete

SANTA CLARITA - Union Bank of California has completed the acquisition of Santa Clarita-based Valencia Bank & Trust, the companies announced Friday.

Valencia Bank is a $266 million-asset commercial bank with 87 employees and five full-service branches in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. The bank also has a loan production office in Oxnard.

Valencia Bank branches will assume the Union Bank of California name when Valencia's systems are converted in early February.

Government sues accounting giant

CHICAGO - The government filed a $548 million fraud and negligence lawsuit Friday against accounting giant Ernst & Young in connection with the failure of a savings and loan in 2001.

The lawsuit, brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., accused Ernst & Young of misstating Superior Bank's assets and deliberately delaying reporting of the error for fear it would hurt an $11 billion sale of the accounting firm's consulting arm.

U.S. automakers' sales off sharply

DETROIT - A year after incentives helped the auto industry to its best month ever for U.S. vehicle sales, the top American automakers reported Friday that sales dropped nearly 33 percent last month compared with October 2001.

Sales for General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, fell nearly 32 percent in October compared with the same month a year earlier. Car sales were down 39.9 percent, while light truck sales - including pickups, sport utility vehicles, vans and minivans - fell 25.7 percent.

No. 2 Ford Motor Co.'s sales were down nearly 35 percent for the period. At DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, sales fell nearly 31 percent, with car sales down 34.7 percent and light truck sales down 29.8 percent.

Dropped decimal raises hotel bills

Thousands of guests at Holiday Inns and their sister hotels were billed amounts that even room service, pay-per-view movies and a few stolen towels couldn't explain: $6,500 to $21,000 per night.

A credit processing error dropped the decimal point in bills for about 26,000 people staying at Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza hotels last week. The guests were charged 100 times what they owed.

A charge of $100, for example, ballooned to $10,000, busting the credit limits of many cardholders and temporarily overdrawing the bank accounts of customers who paid with debit cards.

The hotels' credit processor, First Horizon Merchant Services of Englewood, Colo., said most banks had reversed the bad charges by Friday.

Chicken tacos recalled by maker

A Southern California company issued a voluntary recall of about 1,400 pounds of chicken tacos Friday because they could pose a threat to people allergic to milk, officials said.

The products being recalled by Monterey Park-based Sierra Madre Foods Inc. are approximately 9-ounce packages of ``Trader Joe's Low Fat Soft Chicken Tacos,'' that bear sell-by dates between ``Sell By 102802'' and ``Sell By 110902.'' Each package also has the code ``P-6009'' inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture seal of inspection.

The product was made between Oct. 14 and Oct. 28 and was distributed to retail stores in California.