Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word independent. 7 news.

BRITISH insurance company Norwich Union was fined 1.26 million pounds (US$2.54 million) yesterday for a data-protection failure that allowed criminals to cash dozens of policies held by customers. Fraudsters gained access to the company's databases and cashed 74 policies worth 3.3 million pounds, the Financial Services Authority said. "Norwich Union Life let down its customers by not taking reasonable steps to keep their personal and financial information safe and secure," said Margaret Cole, the enforcement director of the Financial Services Authority. Norwich Union, a unit of Aviva PLC, said all of the canceled policies had been fully reinstated, and 11 people had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the fraud. Anti-fraud measures have been updated following an independent review of the company's operations, it said. "Whilst the number of customers affected is very small, any breach in customer confidentiality is clearly unacceptable," said Mark

AUSTRALIA'S competition watchdog said yesterday it had rejected a proposal led by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd to build a multi-billion-dollar high-speed broadband network in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rejected the bid proposed by SingTel and eight other telecommunications groups, saying it did not have adequate audit mechanisms. "The undertaking gives the network owner a high degree of discretion in unilaterally determining non-price terms and conditions for the 15-year undertaking period, without independent regulatory review," ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel said. "We could not accept so much discretion from a gas, electricity or rail firm. Access seekers would not know where they stood." The regulator, however, said it was generally comfortable with the pricing structured offered by the so-called "G9" consortium, and that it was open to receiving a revised proposal. David Tudehope, chief executive of

BRUSSELS, Belgium - In an unusual move, European lawmakers will press fiercely independent antitrust regulators next month to look at data privacy issues surrounding Google Inc.

Interpublic, in the throes of a plan to find greater operating efficiencies among its media operations, just found two: The consolidation of one of its boutique media buying and planning units into a bigger network; and the departure of the top executive of a high profile media negotiating unit in what could be a harbinger of other changes to come. Media First International, an entrepreneurial media shop acquired by Interpublic in 2002, will be folded into Initiative North America, effective Jan. 1, 2008, the same date Bill Cella steps down as chairman-CEO of Interpublic's Magna Global Worldwide unit. Interpublic insiders maintain that both moves were made independent of a new holding company task force created to find and implement operating efficiencies across its media services operations.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Infonxx Inc. late Friday filed a $250 million initial public offering with underwriters Goldman Sachs , J.P. Morgan and Bank of America Securities . Infonxx bills itself as the largest provider of branded directory assistance services in Europe and the largest independent provider of outsourced directory assistance services in the U.S. The company has yet to determine its trading symbol or its stock exchange.

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- LDK Solar Co., the Xinyu City, China, producer of multicrystalline solar wafers, the raw material for solar cells, said that the audit committee's outside directors found no material errors in the company's report of its inventory of silicon feedstock at Aug. 31. A former staffer, Charley Situ, had said that the company incorrectly reported this inventory. Situ's "allegations of an inventory discrepancy were incorrect because he had not taken into account all locations in which the company stored its silicon feedstock," the company said in a statement on Monday. "The investigation further concluded that the company is using each of its various types of silicon feedstock" to produce solar wafers, "and that a provision for obsolete or excess silicon feedstock is not required." The inquiry was conducted by the audit committee's independent counsel, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP; a Big Four accounting and consulting firm other than LDK's external auditors, and outside experts, the company said.

The property fund hopes to secure planning permission to expand the elite independent private schools group it has bought from Sovereign Capital for ?113m