BRIEFCASE STUDIO, FOUNDER SETTLE LAWSUITS.

Byline: - Staff and wire reports

The president of Beverly Hills Film Studios said Monday that the company and B.J. ``Beau'' Davis, the company's founder, had settled their respective lawsuits against each other.

``The company and our management team are pleased that these issues and misunderstandings are now behind us,'' said Kimberley Kates, Beverly Hills Film Studios president.

Peter Szabadi, an attorney for Davis, said the terms of the settlement were mutually agreed upon by Davis and the studios. The attorney declined to comment further.

Firing Ovitz would have caused grief

GEORGETOWN, Del. - A Walt Disney Co. director testified Monday that he didn't believe it would have been in the company's best interest in late 1996 to allow former President Michael Ovitz to serve out the remainder of his five-year contract in another position, rather than fire him.

Echoing prior testimony from other Disney directors, Gary L. Wilson, chairman of Northwest Airlines Corp., said he believed it would have been difficult for the entertainment giant to hire another president if Ovitz, a former top talent agent, had stayed with the company.

Ovitz, Disney chief executive Michael Eisner and several current and former directors, including Wilson, are being sued in the Delaware Court of Chancery over a $140 million severance package paid to Ovitz when he left Disney after 14 months as the company's president.

T-bill rates mixed in auction Monday

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities were mixed in Monday's auction.

The Treasury Department sold $19 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 2.210 percent, up from 2.195 percent last week. An additional $17 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 2.380 percent, down from 2.395 percent.

The three-month rate was the highest since Oct. 1, 2001, when the bills sold for 2.320 percent. The six-month rate was the lowest since Nov. 22 when the rate was 2.365 percent.

In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year constant maturity Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 2.62 percent last week from 2.60 percent the previous week.

Clear Channel, Fox in news deal

SAN ANTONIO - Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has selected Fox News Radio to provide national news for most of its news and talk stations in a deal expected to nearly double Fox's radio presence.

No terms of the five-year cash deal were disclosed Monday. But Fox, a unit of News Corp., said that, if all options in the agreement are exercised, its radio service could have more than 500 affiliates by the middle of next year.