Business news for Fri, 21 Dec 2007 & with words department+francisco. 3 news.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- FedEx Corp. said late Friday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it received a grand jury subpoena in December to produce documents related to an ongoing criminal antitrust probe by the Department of Justice. The probe is related to possible anti-competitive behavior in the international air freight forwarding industry. FedEx said it does not believe it has engaged in any anti-competitive practices and is cooperating with the probe.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude oil rallied more than $2 Friday to over $93 a barrel after a government report showed November U.S. consumer spending increased by the largest margin in more than two years, easing fears that oil demand from the world's largest crude consumer may slow. Crude oil for February delivery ended the session up $2.25, or 2.5%, at $93.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Commerce Department reported Friday that U.S. nominal consumer spending increased 1.1%, the most in two and a half years. Economists had been expecting November's spending to rise 0.9%. At the same time, nominal incomes only rose 0.4% in the same month.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Lucent Technologies Inc., now a part of Alcatel-Lucent , agreed to pay a $1 million fine to resolve allegations that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Department of Justice said Friday. The agreement concludes an investigation into whether Lucent violated the FCPA when the company provided travel and other things of value to Chinese government officials and improperly accounted for certain corporate expenditures on behalf of those officials in company books and records. The allegations date back to before Lucent's merger with Alcatel SA in November 2006.