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Byline: - Staff and Wire Reports

MGM sale to Sony consortium OK'd

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. said Wednesday that the European Commission has approved the famed Hollywood studio's nearly $3 billion sale to a consortium led by Sony Corp.

MGM said the commission, the administrative arm of the European Union, approved the deal without conditions. The deal received U.S. antitrust regulatory approval when the required waiting period expired without objections in December.

The studio said it expects the deal will close before mid-April, subject to receipt of the necessary financing and other closing conditions.

Blue Shield CEO: Share health bill

SANTA ANA - The CEO of medical insurer Blue Shield of California says employers, individuals and government must begin to share the bill for treating the uninsured before the state's health care system buckles under rising costs.

Bruce G. Bodaken, chief executive officer of Blue Shield of California, says the state's private-sector health care market is stuck in a cycle of rising costs as hospitals and other medical providers continually raise the amount they charge health care plans to offset losses, largely from caring for the uninsured.

Inadequately funded public programs such as Medicare and Medi-Cal also compound the expense of caring for uninsured individuals, which make up nearly 20 percent of the population, Bodaken told a gathering of Orange County underwriters Tuesday.

Family feud hits sale of satellite

NEW YORK - In the latest twist in a bitter family feud, the founder and chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., Charles Dolan, is asking federal regulators to block Cablevision's deal to sell a broadcast satellite to EchoStar Communications Corp.

In the petition, made earlier this week with the Federal Communications Commission, Dolan said the proposed $200 million deal would limit competition among broadcast satellite providers.

Dolan has been battling his company's board and his son James, Cablevision's CEO, over his plans to develop a third satellite TV business that would compete with EchoStar's DISH network and The DirecTV Group Inc.

Cablevision reached the deal to sell the satellite to EchoStar after deciding to shut down the nascent satellite TV business that Dolan had championed, called Voom.

Deal on to make fuel cell vehicles 

WASHINGTON - General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG have signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles over the next five years, the automakers said Wednesday.

GM, the world's largest automaker, plans to build a fleet of 40 hydrogen fuel vehicles. Under the program, GM will spend $44 million to distribute the vehicles in Washington, New York, California and Michigan. The Energy Department also will provide $44 million in the deal, which is set to expire in September 2009.

DaimlerChrysler, which has the largest fleet of fuel cell vehicles of any automaker, will invest more than $70 million in its partnership with the Energy Department, the German-American company said.

AIG artificially boosted reserves

NEW YORK - Amid widening government probes into its financial practices, insurance giant American International Group Inc. acknowledged Wednesday it had improperly booked transactions with a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. that artificially boosted its reserves.

AIG also said that it had not yet completed an in-house review of its accounting and would have to delay filing its annual report until April 30. New York-based AIG earlier had said it expected to file the report today.