NH case against 2 big oil companies gets underway

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The state of New Hampshire is launching its case against two major oil companies in what is expected to be the longest and most complex trial in state history.
The state's lawyers say ExxonMobil and Citgo should pay more than $700 million in damages to monitor and clean up groundwater contamination caused by the gas additive MTBE — methyl tertiary butyl ether — now banned in New Hampshire.
Lawyers for the oil companies say they have cleaned up their own sites and that contamination elsewhere was caused by third parties not named in the suit.
The lawsuit — filed in 2003 — is the only one brought by a state to reach trial on the issue of MTBE groundwater contamination. Most of the other MTBE cases nationwide were brought by municipalities, water districts or individual well owners, and all but one was settled or dismissed.
The jury trial begins Monday and is expected to last four months. It is being held in a federal courtroom on loan to the state so as not to monopolize one of three courtrooms at Merrimack Superior Court.
More than 50,000 exhibits have been marked and the witness list numbers 230.
It was clear from a pretrial conference Friday that jurors will be confronted with an alphabet soup of acronyms for various funds and agencies, will have to grapple with complex statistical analyses and will hear contradictory testimony by expert witnesses.
MTBE had been used in gasoline since the 1970s to increase octane and reduce smog-causing emissions. While it was credited with cutting air pollution, it was found in the late 1990s to contaminate drinking water when gasoline is spilled or leaks into surface or groundwater. New Hampshire banned its use in 2007.
Roughly 60 percent of New Hampshire's population gets its drinking water from wells, which drives up the estimated cost to test and treat contaminated water sources.

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Volkswagen reports record sales for 2012

BERLIN (AP) — German automaker Volkswagen AG says its 2012 group sales hit a record high as growing demand around the world more than offset sluggish sales in Europe.
It says Monday that more than nine million vehicles were delivered for the first time. The total of 9.07 million was up 11.2 percent from the 8.16 million delivered in 2011. December sales were also up 20.7 percent over the same month last year.
Geographically, North American sales spiked 26.2 percent to 841,500 vehicles, while those in South America rose 8.2 percent to 1.01 million. Asia-Pacific sales were 23.3 percent higher at 3.17 million.
Those increases helped offset a 6.5 percent drop in western Europe, excluding Germany, to 1.85 million vehicles. German sales rose 1.9 percent to 1.18 million vehicles.

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UPS $6.9 billion TNT Express takeover falls apart

AMSTERDAM (AP) — United Parcel Service Inc. has ditched its €5.2 billion ($6.9 billion) takeover of TNT Express NV after learning that European regulators would reject the deal in its current form.
Though TNT will receive a €200 million ($265.5 million) break fee, it faces an uncertain future on its own. Its shares plummeted 50 percent to € 4.083 in the first minutes of Monday trading in Amsterdam following the bid's failure.
UPS had offered to buy struggling TNT, Europe's second-largest delivery company, in May, to better compete with Europe's largest, Deutsche Post's DHL. But regulators said in October that the deal would lead to over-concentration in the sector.
In response, UPS offered to sell parts of the company's small package operations and airline assets but after meeting with regulators Jan. 11, UPS told TNT it saw no prospect of the deal being approved — and it wasn't interested in further concessions.
In its last earnings report, for the third quarter of 2012, TNT lost €3 million on sales of €1.8 billion. Former CEO Marianne-Christine Lombard quit the company in September mid-takeover, in a move that was criticized as "unethical" by TNT's chairman, Antony Bergmans, and interpreted by some as a sign the deal was in trouble, since she stood to gain a €2.6 million bonus for seeing it through to completion.
She was replaced on an interim basis by CFO Bernard Bot.
In a statement, TNT conceded that the "protracted merger process has been a distraction for management" and that it would now focus on reassuring customers, encouraging employees and making money.
"Management will provide an update on its strategy in due course," the company said.
UPS CEO Scott Davis said he was "extremely disappointed" with the stance taken by regulators.
"We proposed significant and tangible remedies designed to address the European Commission's concerns with the transaction," he said, adding that the deal would have benefited customers worldwide and supported economic growth "particularly in Europe."
The European Commission will publish its review of the deal within several weeks.
Before UPS's bid for TNT Express, some analysts thought rival FedEx might make a bid for the company, but FedEx executives said — in March 2012 at least — they had no plans to do so.

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