Business PR Wire

A Shanghai court rejected a Chinese company's effort to get a preliminary injunction against the sale of Apple's iPad there over a trademark dispute and postponed the hearings pending the results of another case in a Chinese court.

U.K. utility Centrica said it had cut around 2,300 jobs as part of its plan to deliver £500 million in cost savings as weaker economic conditions and higher wholesale gas prices pressured profits.

Chinese banks are wrestling with rising funding costs both inside and outside China's borders, at a time when these banks are expected to lend more to bolster China when its trade and real-estate sectors are sagging.

British American Tobacco posted a rise in profit on higher revenue, but cautioned that the consumer outlook remains uncertain.

RBS said that it slumped to a 2011 full-year net loss of nearly $3.13 billion as the euro-zone crisis continued to weigh on its investment banking division and Greek debt write-downs hurt the U.K. bank's bottom line.

Germany's Commerzbank said it will increase capital by $1.32 billion to meet tougher regulations and gave an upbeat outlook after it posted higher fourth-quarter net profit.

Swiss Re returned to profit in the fourth quarter of 2011, despite the impact of the heavy floods in Thailand.

Allianz, Europe's biggest primary insurer by market capitalization, said that a solid performance on the operating level enabled it to keep its dividend for 2011 stable despite a 57% decline in net profit for the year.

Polaris Financial Technology expects its sales growth to slow in the fiscal year starting April 1, but it is confident of beating the industry average.

Crédit Agricole SA posted its heaviest net loss since it went public a decade ago in the fourth quarter, suffering from the impact of the Greek crisis and restructuring costs.

Deutsche Telekom said it expects operating profit to drop further after reporting more customer losses in the U.S. and as the tough economy in many parts of Europe continues to hurt the company.

Dexia reported a $15.37 billion net loss for 2011, driven by a write-off of its Greek bond portfolio and costs linked to the break-up of the bank.

Fashion retailer Esprit Holdings said its first-half net profit tumbled 74% from a year earlier, as it continues to struggle to rebuild its brand while facing head winds in its wholesale business and European operations.

Investigators probing the collapse of MF Global are scrutinizing two money transfers made during the securities firm's final days in an effort to uncover what happened to $1.6 billion in missing customer funds.

A coalition of Internet companies including Google has agreed to support a do-not-track button to be embedded in most Web browsers—a move that the industry had been resisting for more than a year.

Alex Gorsky's biggest order of business as new CEO may involve repairing another J&J business: consumer products.

America is pumping more oil out of the ground than it has in years, while Americans' gasoline consumption is at an 11-year-low. Yet gasoline prices are rising, and experts say it's all about the global economy and geopolitics.

P&G this week is rolling out Tide Pods—small, dissolvable packets of detergent that will be the company's highest-price laundry detergent, costing about a quarter more per load than liquid.

Several start-ups are hoping to piggyback on the recent popularity of social-networking site Pinterest.com.

A group of dozens of state attorneys general have raised concerns with Google over the Internet giant's new privacy policy, marking the latest public flare-up over the planned changes.