WASHINGTON
Mike Tyson last week was given the green light to stage his championship fight with Lennox Lewis in Washington, D.C., putting a possible end to the troubled boxer’s efforts to find a city that would host the bout.

Last month, Nevada refused to grant Tyson a license to fight in the state, killing a planned $150-million meet up on the Vegas strip.

Following Nevada’s decision, Tyson started casting for a replacement host. Last week, Washington stepped forward, offering its services for a June rumble at the city’s MCI Center, reported the Reuters news agency.

The decision by the Washington, D.C., Boxing and Wrestling Commission caused a rumble of its own, sparking angry reaction from many residents who say catering to Tyson, who has a reputation for extracurricular violence and has been convicted of rape, sets a bad precedent.

But Boxing Commission chairman Mike Brown said such concerns are insufficient when pitted against the economic benefits the fight could bring to the Capital, which has been hard hit following September’s terrorist attacks.

“If this can provide a boost to get people back in spending money and doing business, we are all in favor. And that outweighs any issues concerning Mr. Tyson’s past,” Brown told Reuters.

The fight is expected to pull in between $5 million and $6 million for the city.

Brown’s view was backed last week by Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, who added, “We’re standing on a difficult road here if we start playing the police and saying this person can’t play for this reason, because sports is not a completely clean business.”

Brad Edwards, general manager of the Renaissance Washington hotel, questioned such reasoning. “Economically we want any event like [the Tyson fight]. But we have to be careful and think, ‘Does it signal that we’ll take any event to turn the city around?’” Edwards asked the Washington Post.

The commission’s decision to green-light the fight is not final, noted the Post. A public hearing is scheduled for March 12, followed by a final vote, though Brown expects the decision to be approved.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

SALT LAKE CITY
French Olympic skating judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne is recanting her earlier admission, made orally and in writing, that she was pressured to vote against the Canadian skating pair, Jaime Salé and David Pelletier.

She now claims that a British referee, Sally-Anne Stapleford, verbally intimidated her to vote in favor of the Canadians.

She is also alleging that since the 2000 World Championship in Nice, Canadians had put tremendous pressure on her to favor the Canadian skating pair, who now share the gold medal with the Russian skaters.

Meanwhile, the head of the International Skating Union has confirmed that a committee of his organization is still investigating the incident. He also announced a plan to change the number of skating judges and the rules for judging to stop unethical block voting and vote swapping.

The Russian Olympic team, which has also been hit with a potential doping scandal, last week threatened to pull out of the final events of the Olympics due to what it sees as discrimination against its team, including the judging of the pairs skating event. In a final twist of what some are calling an Olympic-sized farce, the Russian team has sent a letter to Russian President Putin outlining its complaints against the Olympic organizers.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
Canada lost one round in an ongoing trade dispute with Brazil over subsides to their main aerospace corporations after a WTO panel ruled last week that Canada broke international trade rules when it gave a $1.07 billion low-interest loan to Air Wisconsin to buy 75 regional jets from Bombardier Inc. of Montreal.

The Canadian government had justified the loans as a defensive measure that matched export subsidies given by the Brazilian government to its major aerospace company, Embraer.

Canadian Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew has attempted to downplay the loss, arguing that the ruling merely clarifies what Canada can and cannot do to protect its aerospace industry from unfair competition from Brazil.

Minister Pettigrew pointed out that the WTO panel had upheld the legality of other export financing programs of Canada. The minister also said that Brazil had lost in four other related WTO panel rulings and proceeded to suggest that such losses made it harder for the Brazilians to sit down and negotiate a settlement, a charge that Brazilian government representatives vehemently rejected.

HOUSTON
An aspiring writer was released from jail last week after spending more than five months behind bars for refusing to turn over notes related to the 1997 murder of a reputed bookie’s wife.

Vanessa Leggett was jailed in July after refusing to submit to the subpoena of federal prosecutors, who were investigating the murder of Doris Angleton, reported ABCNews.com.

Prosecutors say they believe Angleton’s millionaire husband, Robert, hired his brother Roger to kill Doris Angleton during the couple’s divorce proceedings. Leggett interviewed Roger before he committed suicide in prison, leaving behind a note claiming full responsibility and exonerating Robert.

Leggett provided her research materials to state prosecutors for an earlier trial. But when federal prosecutors revived the case and demanded her materials, including all copies in existence, she refused, saying her notes included confidential information protected by her role as a journalist.

Leggett was jailed for contempt of court, with prosecutors alleging that Leggett, who has yet to be published, was not a true journalist and therefore not protected by accordant First Amendment provisions.

Leggett was released from jail last week after the grand jury investigating Robert Angleton closed its term. Federal prosecutors say they may revive the case again soon, putting Leggett’s newly regained freedom in jeopardy.

Leggett’s lawyer, backed by journalist groups, has appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court, noted the Associated Press.

“I am not a martyr, and I want to see justice done” in the matter of Doris Angleton’s murder, Leggett said last week through tears, but promised to return to jail if necessary. “If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. This is not so much about me. It’s about the public’s right to a free and independent press,” she insisted.

PARIS
French lawmakers last week used an emergency session to pass a law protecting the nation’s doctors from liability for failing to detect birth defects in developing fetuses.

The new law, scheduled for full passage by the end of February, comes after a public outcry over three recent court rulings that have essentially blamed doctors for allowing disabled children to be born.

The rulings centered on prenatal tests that failed to detect abnormalities in the developing fetuses, the New York Times reported.

After several major court awards to parents of children with abnormalities, doctors went on strike, refusing to provide ultrasound scans to pregnant women for fear of being held liable if they failed to catch any abnormalities.

The cases prompted a public outcry against what many saw as a devaluing of the lives of disabled people, who were better aborted than born, according to widespread interpretation of the rulings.

“What is unbearable about this debate is that we — disabled people — have the feeling that we are ‘in the way,’” Jean-Christophe Parisot, president of the Collective of Disabled Democrats, told the BBC.

The rulings reveal “the total incapacity of our society to see disability as a richness, and its rejection of anything that is different,” Parisot said.

Lawyers for the families insist that the court rulings are not condemning disabled people as inferior, but rather saying that parents raising disabled children face considerable costs that could have been avoided by better physician care.

“The court never said there should be damages for the mere fact of being alive. It said there should be damages for suffering,” lawyer Gilles-Jean Portejoie told the BBC. “And the child suffers not from being born, but from the disability.”

The new French law makes it possible for only parents — not their disabled children — to sue for damages, and only for cases in which a “blatant error” by the doctor caused the disability.

DETROIT
Ford Motor Co. last week agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle two class-action suits accusing the auto giant of biasing employee reviews against its older, white, male middle managers.

As many as 620 current or former Ford employees had joined the suits, accusing Ford of giving them negative performance reviews in a push to eliminate older, white men in favor of women and minorities.

Last week’s deal, which still must be approved in court, would give each worker up to $100,000, minus legal fees, to drop their claims, reported the Associated Press. Ford admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the terms of the settlement.

“We feel that this really is a fair settlement,” Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said last week. “It signals to our people that we want to mend relationships and go forward.”

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida
Adam’s Mark Hotels & Resorts agreed last week to pay $1.1 million to settle claims that the hotel chain grossly discriminated against black guests during a 1999 event at the company’s Daytona Beach facility.

The deal ends two lawsuits accusing Adam’s Mark of violating the dignity and rights of black guests and their visitors during the 1999 Black College Reunion, which typically attracts as many as 100,000 visitors to the area.

Five plaintiffs led a class-action suit cataloguing a list of discriminatory treatment faced by blacks compared to white guests, reported the Orlando Sentinel.

According to the suit, black guests were forced to park off-site and hand carry their luggage to the hotel; were forced to wear neon orange wristbands; were overcharged and forced to pay cash in advance for their rooms; were required to pay cash deposits in order to have phones in their rooms; were denied visitors; were subjected to altered room-service menus that limited choices to fried chicken and barbecue; and were served on plastic-foam plates instead of the china offered to other guests.

“These individuals were robbed of more than just a nice weekend,” Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth said last week. “They were robbed of their respect; they were robbed of their dignity.”

After the allegations became public, the U.S. Justice Department, Florida’s Attorney General’s Office, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People signed on with lawsuits.

Adam’s Mark has denied any discrimination, but agreed to pay $8 million to settle the Justice Department’s suit — a deal that was later thrown out on a technicality, according to the Sentinel.

Last week’s settlement provides payments of $20,000 for the original five plaintiffs, payments of $500 to $1,000 for other black guests, and $600,000 for four black colleges that will use the money for scholarships and business-management programs, the Associated Press reported.

NEW YORK
A New York judge last week ordered credit card superpowers Visa and MasterCard to stop barring member banks from issuing the cards of American Express and Discover, saying such restrictions were illegal.

The decision follows a two-year effort by the U.S. Justice Department, which sued Visa and MasterCard in 1998, alleging that the firms were colluding to keep competitors out of the credit card market.

Visa and MasterCard, which together control more than 75 percent of U.S. credit card sales, are nonprofit networks of roughly 8,500 banks, all of which have agreed to not offer competitors’ cards to their customers.

American Express and Discover, owned by Morgan Stanley, have complained that such exclusionary practices are illegal, curbing competition and limiting consumers’ options, reported the Associated Press.

Last week, Judge Barbara Jones agreed, saying Visa and MasterCard’s restrictions amounted to an “illegal group boycott,” a practice that must end “to increase competition and consumer welfare.”

Visa and MasterCard say they may appeal the ruling.

CHICAGO
The American Bar Association (ABA) last week began voting on a set of proposed changes to the group’s 18-year-old code of ethics, which is used as a model for the legal profession in more than 40 U.S. states.

At the ABA’s annual meeting last week, delegates approved a resolution making it easier for lawyers to circumvent lawyer-client confidentiality in order to prevent “reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm.”

Previously, lawyers had been able to disclose information only when “imminent” death or substantial bodily harm was anticipated, reported the New York Times.

While the change may seem like semantics, proponents say it could make a profound difference in protecting the public from product dangers arising from their clients’ wrongdoing.

“This is a great expansion in the freedom of lawyers to warn victims and persons in danger of substantial bodily harm or death, regardless of who’s causing it,” or whether it is imminent, Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law, told the Times.

“That’s important in a world of dangerous products, where you have exploding tires and cars that overturn,” Gillers noted.

In other votes, ABA delegates approved a ban on lawyer-client sexual relationships unless a previous consensual relationship had been established, and refused to loosen counsel-client confidentiality in cases wherein lawyers learn their clients are going to commit financial crimes.

The latter vote became a debate over the sanctity of client confidentiality as well as lawyers’ self-interest, with some arguing that loosening the restriction could leave lawyers open to lawsuits for failing to step forward with information, reported the Reuters news agency.

“As soon as we lose the shield of confidentiality … we will be the ones who get sued,” Lawrence Fox, a Philadelphia lawyer who helped review the ABA’s ethics code, told delegates.

CAMDEN, New Jersey
Johnson and Johnson (J&J) last week agreed to pay an estimated $860 million to settle allegations that the health-products firm duped consumers into buying “single-use” contact lenses identical to lenses sold for two-week wear.

The charges were part of a class-action lawsuit filed in 1996, when consumers complained that J&J subsidiary Vistakon was marketing identical Acuvue lenses as both one-day and two-week lenses.

By marketing the two-week contacts as a single-use item, Vistakon was essentially conning consumers into buying more product than they needed, inflating profits at the public’s expense, plaintiffs charged.

Last week, a state judge gave preliminary approval to a settlement of the suit, which calls for J&J to provide cash, product credits, and refunds toward eye examinations to Acuvue users, reported the Associated Press.

An estimated six million consumers spent $1.1 billion on unneeded Acuvue lenses due to the misleading marketing since 1994, according to the lawsuit.

Vistakon president Phil Keefer denied that the company’s dual marketing was deceptive, and said the firm regrets “any confusion there may have been among patients wearing our lenses.”

ATLANTA
A federal appeals court last week lifted the injunction barring the publication of Alice Randall’s “The Wind Done Gone,” saying the parody of “Gone With the Wind” was protected by the First Amendment.

In April, a U.S. District Court judge blocked the Stephen Mitchell Trusts, which owns the copyright to Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel, “Gone With the Wind.”

The new parody parallels the original novel, telling a similar story from the point of view of slaves on the plantation Tata, providing a rougher, more realistic portrait of slavery, reported the Boston Globe.

Mitchell’s estate argued that “The Wind Done Gone” is an example of unabashed piracy that used 15 characters, several scenes, and some verbatim dialogue from “Gone With the Wind.”

Randall’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin Co., countered that the power of parody relies on the substantial use of references to an original work, an argument seconded by a long list of prominent authors and publishing firms.

In last week’s ruling, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta sharply denounced the lower court’s injunction as an “extraordinary and drastic” action that countered Randall’s First Amendment rights.

The “preliminary injunction in this copyright case was an abuse of discretion [that] represents an unlawful prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment,” which protects freedom of speech and the press, the three-judge panel wrote.

Joseph Beck, lead attorney for Houghton Mifflin, applauded the judges’ ruling and reasoning. “The First Amendment would be a poor refuge if the only way to criticize ‘Gone With the Wind’ would be in book reviews and academic journals,” Beck told the Globe.

Martin Garbus, a lawyer for Mitchell’s estate, promised to appeal last week’s ruling, complaining that “racial issues have obscured the copyright issues. The damage done here is a very substantial one,” he said.

Last week’s lifting of the injunction allows Houghton Mifflin to resume publication and release of “The Wind Done Gone,” but does not cover the copyright complaints at the heart of the controversy. If those claims are upheld later, Houghton Mifflin may be liable for damages, noted the Globe.

OMAHA, Nebraska
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad last week agreed to settle a federal lawsuit charging the company with violating the privacy of its injured workers by screening their DNA for alleged defects.

The case centered on Burlington Northern’s policy of requiring injured workers to submit blood samples when filing complaints for carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful injury affecting the hand, wrist, and arm.

The railroad used the blood samples to screen workers’ genetic makeup, looking for a condition known as Chromosome-17 deletion, which some researchers believe may predispose people to carpal tunnel, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Since March 2000, Burlington Northern secretly tested 18 of 125 workers who filed on-the-job injury claims for carpal tunnel, reported the Associated Press.

Two workers’ unions and the federal government filed suit against Burlington Northern after workers claimed they had not been told about the tests and, in some cases, had faced retaliation if they refused to submit to the screening.

Earlier this month, Burlington Northern settled the suit filed by the unions. Last week, it settled with the federal government, agreeing to stop all genetic testing, to push for stronger safeguards against future tests by other companies, and to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation into how workers’ test results were used.

Depending on its findings, the government may still seek compensatory and punitive damages of up to $300,000 per affected employee, noted the AP report.

SAN FRANCISCO
Bookstore behemoths Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. last week agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle a suit charging the megastores with using their purchasing power to secure an unfair advantage over independent booksellers.

The suit, filed by the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and 26 independent bookstore owners, accused Borders and Barnes & Noble of pushing publishers into giving both chains steep discounts unavailable to smaller stores.

The suit argued that the megastores violated the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, a federal law meant to prevent large businesses from using their clout to gain market advantage, according to the Associated Press.

Under terms of the deal, Borders and Barnes & Noble will each pay $2.35 million, covering about one-quarter of the ABA’s legal costs in the case, and the ABA will be barred from filing similar charges for a period of three years, according to the AP report.

All sides characterized the ruling as a victory, with Barnes & Noble chairman Leonard Riggio hailing the settlement as “nothing short of a total vindication.”

The ABA said the suit and settlement had achieved the group’s goal of largely leveling the playing field. “Many of the most egregious practices have stopped,” the ABA said in a statement, adding that “the way to address and change those that remain is through negotiation, discussion, and an open airing of issues with publishers, wholesalers, and distributors.”

NORMAL, Illinois
Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America last week agreed to pay more than $3.2 million to settle allegations of racial discrimination by plant supervisors and workers at a manufacturing facility in Illinois.

Under a settlement approved last week by a federal judge, Mitsubishi will pay $1.8 million to attorneys and $1.4 million to the ten lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed in January 2000, reported the Associated Press.

The workers, representing Mitsubishi’s other black and Hispanic workers, accused the company of suppressing black workers’ pay and promotion opportunities, and of regularly ignoring racial harassment, including pranks, slurs, and threats.

Other workers covered by the class-action settlement will receive funds to be determined by appointed arbitrators on an individual basis, according to the AP.

Mitsubishi also agreed to allow independent auditors to monitor the company’s compliance with the settlement and nondiscrimination practices, according to a company press release.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Patricia Benassi last week praised Mitsubishi’s progress in combating discrimination at its Illinois facility. “It is evident that things have changed for the better,” Benassi said. “The mechanisms put in place under this agreement will advance this progress even further.”

A group of Mitsubishi’s female workers filed a similar suit in 1996, charging the company with pervasive sexual harassment. Mitsubishi settled that suit for $34 million.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

WASHINGTON
Living up to their threats of starting a cross-border lumber trade war, the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports and two forestry unions filed petitions with the Commerce Department seeking to hit Canadian softwood lumber imports with import duties of nearly $8 billion a year.

The U.S. lumber industry is claiming that some Canadian provinces are unfairly subsidizing softwood lumber exports and dumping lumber products below cost in the United States, causing some lumber mills to close.

Canadian Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew stated that he was confident that Canada would win ultimately in this trade dispute under the rules of the North American Free Trade Agreement and pointing out that the U.S. lumber industry has tried and failed three times in the past 20 years to impose duties on Canadian lumber.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien claims that documents released last week prove that he did not have a conflict of interest when, in 1993, he lobbied the head of a state-owned development bank on behalf of a hotel adjacent to the golf course in which he once held part ownership.

The opposition parties in the Canadian Parliament have rejected the prime minister’s claim, arguing that as the prime minister was not paid for his 25 percent interest in the golf course until 1999, he had an interest in ensuring that the value of the hotel adjacent to the golf course did not diminish.

However, the prime minister’s Ethics Counselor, Howard Wilson, insisted on releasing 11 private documents, including a hand-written bill of sale, claiming that they demonstrated conclusively that the prime minister had sold his interest in the golf course and was not in a conflict of interest when he lobbied to obtain a $391,000 on behalf of the adjacent hotel, which was owned by a friend.

SAN FRANCISCO
A federal judge last week gave the green light for an April trial pitting independent booksellers against the nation’s two largest retail chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders, which the independents accuse of using their massive buying power to swing lucrative and illegal deals with publishers.

The independents, represented by the American Bookseller Association (ABA), allege that the giant chains have pushed publishers into giving them steep discounts and benefits the smaller stores cannot afford.

Borders and Barnes & Noble both deny any wrongdoing.

After hearing arguments last week, U.S. District Judge William Orrick said the lawsuit may proceed, but rejected the ABA’s economic model for recovering damages should the plaintiffs win the case.

Orrick’s ruling bars the ABA and independent booksellers from receiving any monetary damages, and eliminates the chance of a jury trial, which analysts predicted would favor the ABA’s side, reported the New York Times.

The ABA issued a statement admitting it was “disappointed” by the ruling, but insisted that the “suit was never about monetary damages. Rather, from the beginning, it has been a fight to ensure that all book retailers play by the same rules on a level playing field.”

Trial is scheduled to open April 9.

Independent booksellers have waged similar actions against publishers over the past decade, though those suits have all been settled out of court, noted the Times report.

BERLIN
Spurred on by the threat of U.S. lawsuits, Germany’s leading businesses last week anted up an additional $700 million, fulfilling their commitment to a $4.8 billion fund earmarked for survivors of slave labor during the Holocaust.

The fund agreement, signed last summer, was supposed to be a 50-50 split between German industry and the German government. Until last week, the country’s corporations had failed to contribute sufficient funds.

Under terms of the agreement, Holocaust victims forced to work for German businesses during World War II are to receive roughly $7,160 each, while businesses receive immunity from future lawsuits related to the wartime labor.

Last week, the deal threatened to unravel after a U.S. federal judge refused to dismiss a Holocaust suit in New York, ruling that German businesses had not yet met their end of the deal and were therefore still liable for damages.

The judge’s ruling proved sufficient impetus for German firms to raise the funds to meet the shortfall, with companies including BMW, Dresdner Bank, and Deutsche Bank reportedly agreeing to double their contributions.

Having fully funded the $4.8 billion pact, German industry will now turn its attention to hammering out the fine points of their immunity clause, according to spokesman Wolfgang Gibowski.

Payments to an estimated one million Holocausts survivors, mostly non-Jewish Eastern Europeans, could start as early as this summer, the BBC reported.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
Following the lead of the United States, Canada has lifted a ban on Brazilian beef just three weeks after it initiated the ban, according to the Globe & Mail.

The United States, which imported much more beef than Canada, lifted the ban unilaterally in February after the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that there was no evidence of BSE (”mad cow” disease) in Brazil.

Weeks earlier, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had cited a “theoretical risk” of Brazilian beef products being contaminated with BSE, but after the United States lifted its import restriction, the Canadian press release stated that Canadian officials were now confident that Brazil is in compliance with Canadian BSE policy.

Some had linked the Canadian ban to an ongoing dispute between Canada and Brazil over subsidies to manufacturers of regional jets in both countries.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to overturn a crippling $45.5 million judgment slapped on the Allied Pilots Association (APA) for waging a sickout in early 1999 that grounded hundreds of American Airlines flights.

Without comment or dissent, the Court refused to hear arguments in the appeal, filed by the APA, which says the award exceeds the union’s assets by roughly $10 million, reported the Washington Post.

U.S. District Court Judge Joe Kendall slapped the union with the fine after pilots failed to end their sickout promptly following a court order. Kendall said the union’s foot-dragging cost American an estimated $250 million in canceled flights and associated losses, and ordered the union to partly reimburse American Airlines’ parent company.

The APA waged its sickout in February 1999 to protest American’s incorporation of lower-paid pilots from newly acquired Reno Air — a move the union thought would cost existing pilots’ jobs.

To date, American has not moved to collect the award from the APA, noted the Post.

“The court process has played out and this is what we have anticipated. Any further discussions will be between the company and APA,” an American Airlines spokeswoman said after last week’s ruling.