BRIEFCASE.

Byline: -- Staff and Wire Services

Despite troubles, Tenet meet quiet

DALLAS -- Stock in Tenet Healthcare Corp. fell 30 percent last year, the hospital operator has lost nearly $5 billion in three years, and its financial dealings with doctors are under renewed scrutiny by federal officials. But there were no signs of turmoil at Friday's annual shareholder meeting.

Voting almost entirely by proxy, shareholders re-elected all nine directors for another year and approved the selection of auditor KPMG LLP. One shareholder, a retired director of a predecessor to Tenet, asked two innocuous questions.

The meeting was over in 10 minutes.

It was a stark difference from raucous meetings of the past, including a 2003 gathering in Los Angeles that featured protesting nurses and stockholders who were unhappy after the shares plunged from $50 to $15 in less than two weeks.

Alliance awarded for local work

VAN NUYS -- For its work championing the area, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley received an award from the Alliance for Regional Stewardship. To earn the recognition, the nonprofit economic development group, funded by local companies including the Daily News, worked to come up with a long-term business attraction and retention strategy, drummed up support for the Orange Line busway and created career retraining programs. For its efforts, the Economic Alliance received $10,000 in cash and a silver bowl.

Valley economic group promotes 2

VAN NUYS -- Jenni Kwon and Warren Cooley both earned promotions from the Valley Economic Development Center. The nonprofit organization named Cooley director of retail and economic development, while Kwon became director of the Entrepreneurship Center.

Warning labels aren't mandatory

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state judge ruled that California cannot require the nation's three largest tuna companies to place mercury-warning labels on their cans.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued the tuna canners two years ago to enforce Proposition 65, a 1986 state law requiring consumer warnings about reproductive toxins such as mercury.

In a ruling issued late Thursday, Superior Court Judge Robert Dondero said the state's attempt to enforce the law conflicts with federal policies on tuna consumption.

Past Vioxx users face health risks

TRENTON, N.J. -- People who took the painkiller Vioxx were at increased risk of heart attack and stroke for at least a year after they stopped taking the drug, several doctors said Friday, challenging claims the drug's maker had made the day before.

The doctors refuted the interpretation of a study by Merck & Co. Company officials had contended Thursday that users of Vioxx weren't at increased risk of heart attack or stroke in the year after quitting the drug.

NYSE specialists guilty of fraud

NEW YORK -- Two specialists who supervised trades on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange pleaded guilty Friday to securities fraud in what a prosecutor called a ``groundbreaking'' development in a new area of prosecution.

Joseph Bongiorno, 51, of Brooklyn, and Patrick McGagh Jr., 40, of Little Silver, N.J., entered the pleas in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, admitting they illegally put their companies' orders ahead of orders from the public.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Goldberg said the pleas ``are groundbreaking on their own because they are expected to change the tenor'' of cases against a dozen other specialists facing criminal charges in a case brought last year.