BUSINESS NOTES.

SEARS ADMITS ERRORS: Sears Roebuck and Co. said Thursday it will repay bankrupt customers who were pressured to continue paying off their Sears credit cards even though their debts had been wiped out.

Stock in the nation's second-largest retailer fell nearly 8 percent after Sears said the payments would impact 1997 annual earnings.

Under threat of court action and a class-action lawsuit, the company said Thursday that ``it exercised flawed legal judgment'' in its handling of the debt collections.

The company pressured bankrupt customers to pay off their credit card bills even though their debts were erased when they filed for bankruptcy. Sears said it didn't report repayment agreements to the bankruptcy court, which requires approval of such collections.

LOBBYISTS DERAIL MORTGAGE INSURANCE REFORM: A bill that could save home buyers hundreds of dollars a year in mortgage insurance costs has been derailed by industry lobbyists who weighed in with House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Democrats charged Thursday.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, had seemed on the fast track to passage. It was approved 36-1 by the House Banking Committee last month, and was slated for action this week in the full House, on a list of bills deemed noncontroversial.

But just two hours before the measure was to go to the floor on Tuesday, Armey notified the House Banking Committee chairman, Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, that the mortgage insurance industry had problems with the bill and it was being pulled from the calendar, according to sources in both parties.

APPLE NEARS DEAL WITH CLONE MAKERS: Apple Computer Inc. and Macintosh clone makers are closer to resolving a dispute over how much Apple can charge them for selling computers based on its Macintosh operating system, people familiar with the talks said Thursday.

Financially struggling Apple had wanted to sharply boost the fees to the licensees, which include International Business Machines Corp., Motorola Inc. and Power Computing Corp.

E-MAIL BROWNOUT CUTS OFF AOL: Computer problems at the nation's largest on-line service left tens of thousands of Internet users unable to send e-mail messages to America Online's 8 million subscribers for three days.

AOL said the e-mail brownout was triggered Monday by an unusual spike in the number of Internet users trying to send messages to its customers, whose on-line addresses end in aol.com. The increased volume overwhelmed its computers that relay Internet e-mail. The Dulles, Va.-based company said it had largely fixed the problem by Thursday.