Rooting out one dishonest investment banker amongst the hundreds who sign confidentiality agreements for a merger is virtually impossible despite the checks and balances banks put in place.   On Wednesday, U.S. federal prosecutors accused two men of running a 17-year conspiracy to trade on corporate merger secrets stolen from three of the nation's most

Microsoft Corp and Toyota Motor Corp unveiled a plan on Wednesday to work together on bringing Internet-connected services to Toyota's cars across the world. The world's biggest software company and the biggest automaker said they were investing about $12 million (1 billion yen) in Toyota Media Service Co, a Toyota unit that handles its digital

* Markets already thought bailout almost inevitable * EU can easily cope with size of bailout * Spain now has good chance of avoiding contagion * Portugal rescue may be simpler than Greece, Ireland * But restructuring, banking risks will not disappear Portugal's decision to seek international aid removes a cloud of uncertainty over the

Spain will not follow ailing neighbour Portugal in seeking a European bailout, Spain's Economy Minister said on Thursday, hoping Lisbon's move will draw a line under Europe's debt crisis. Caretaker Prime Minister Jose Socrates announced late on Wednesday that Portugal was asking for financing from the European Union, the third euro zone member to do

Former Libyan energy minister Omar Fathi bin Shatwan has escaped to Malta from the besieged Libyan town of Misrata, the Maltese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. He arrived in Malta on a small trawler on Friday, but his presence was kept secret, the ministry said. Shatwan also served as industry minister and was chairman of

Customers of Verizon Communications had their email addresses exposed in a massive online data breach last week, according to an email to customers obtained by Reuters.   In what could be one of the biggest such attacks in U.S. history, a computer hacker penetrated the online marketer Epsilon, which controls the customer email databases for

Elpida Memory Inc said on Thursday it has developed a 4-gigabit DRAM chip for smart phones, joining bigger rival Samsung Electronics as the only producers of the large capacity power-saving memory chip. The news pushed Elpida's shares up 5.5 percent. Elpida, the world's No.3 maker of DRAM chips, will start production of the new chip

A Texas judge has overturned a $625 million patent infringement award against Apple Inc, saying the jury erred in finding the maker of Mac computers used technology owned by Mirror Worlds LLC illegally. Mirror Worlds had argued that several features on Apple's computers — Spotlight, Cover Flow and Time Machine — used its own patented