News In Brief

"Fundamentally, we are planning our future without Honeywell," General Electric president Jeffrey Immelt told a news conference over the weekend, indicating he does not expect an OK from the European Union for his company's $42 billion megamerger with the electronics and aircraft systems giant. Immelt said GE would not negotiate further with the EU's competition commission, which is due to issue its decision by July 12. The merger has won conditional approval from regulators in the US. GE proposed to the EU commission to divest itself of $2.2 billion in holdings, $2 billion more than asked for by US regulators. But the EU reportedly wants a selloff of $6 billion. Immelt did not say which rivals had expressed concern to the EU over the merger, but indicated they were both European and American.

For the fourth time this year, Nortel Networks announced a heavy new round of layoffs, this time numbering 10,000. The Canadian telecommunications equipment giant also said Friday it would post a massive $19.2 billion loss for the second quarter. The job cuts bring to 30,000 the number of employees cut from the payroll, or almost one-third of its international workforce.

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