Virginia Businesses in the News


Legal and Regulatory

Have News to Report?

For the Record is compiled from company releases, business journals and newspaper reports from around the state. If you have an item for these listings: • Mail it to: For the Record Virginia Business Magazine P.O. Box 85333 Richmond, VA 23293 • E-mail it to ForTheRecord@va-business.com • Fax it to (804) 649-6311

AOL Time Warner Inc. was given approval from the Federal Communications Commission to allow the transmission of video entertainment over America Online's Instant Messenger system. (08/19/03, The Washington Post)

Cysive Inc. of Reston, a software provider, announced that the Court of Chancery of the Delaware dismissed a consolidated securities class action complaint filed against the company and its board of directors and denied the plaintiff's request for an injunction. (08/18/03, PR Newswire)

StarBand Communications Inc., a McLean-based satellite Internet firm, plans to cut its debt from $203 million to $14 million and let its creditors take ownership of the firm as part of a reorganization plan. (08/16/03, The Washington Post)

Abacus Communications, a Virginia Beach-based call center, filed for bankruptcy reorganization as a result of loss of business. (08/14/03, The Virginian-Pilot)

INTERMET of Michigan, a manufacturer of cast-metal automotive components, faces a lawsuit from Michigan-based American Axle & Manufacturing and Rhode Island-based Factory Mutual Insurance Co., seeking to recover $2 million in damages, alleging that negligence at INTERMET's New River Foundry in Radford led to an explosion and a broken contract. (08/14/03, The Roanoke Times)

Dominion Virginia Power and Dominion Telecom are facing a class action suit by landowners alleging the companies should compensate them for stringing cable across their properties. (08/14/03, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

NTELOS Inc., a Waynesboro-based integrated communications provider, announced that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia entered an order confirming the company's Joint Plan of Reorganization, expecting to emerge from Chapter 11 soon. (08/12/03, PR Newswire)

Xybernaut Corp. of Fairfax, a provider of wearable/mobile computing hardware and software services, was granted a patent by the Japan Patent Office for protective garments integrated with portable computing/communications systems. (08/12/03, Business Wire)

Bob Kopstein, the former chief executive of Optical Cable Corp., a Roanoke-based fiber optic cable provider, was told by an arbitration panel to pay his former stock broker, A.G. Edwards & Sons of St. Louis, $35.1 million. (08/12/03, The Roanoke Times)

eBay, a San Jose, Calif.-based online auction house, was ordered by a federal judge to pay $29.5 million to Virginia inventor Thomas Woolston for patent infringement. (08/06/03, The Associated Press)

White Oak Power Co., a subsidiary of FPL Group of Juno Beach, Fla., received the State Corporation Commission's approval to build and operate a 680-megawatt power plant in Pittsylvania County, although it must obtain required state environmental permits and comply with eight recommendations from the Department of Environmental Quality. (08/06/03, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

The Journal Newspapers Inc. a suburban newspaper based in Northern Virginia, agreed to pay eight former employees a sum of $71,500 to settle a union allegation that the company unfairly laid off workers and closed regional offices in an attempt to stop employees from unionizing. (08/06/03, The Washington Post)

Research in Motion, a mobile communications provider headquartered in Ontario, was ordered by a federal judge to pay NTP Inc., an Arlington based Internet solutions provider, $53.7 million in damages, interest and attorney's fees, for patent infringements of NTP's radio-wave technology that undergirds the handheld BlackBerry e-mail pagers. (08/06/03, The Washington Post)

Ford Motor Co.'s Norfolk plant's United Auto Workers Local 919 union leaders plan to organize the factory's two newest Michigan-based suppliers, Visteon Corp., a supplier of automotive components and systems and TDS/US, a logistics services provider. (08/04/03, The Virginian-Pilot)

APM Terminals Inc., a Denmark-based terminal operator and sister company of Maersk Sealand ship line, secured approval from the Norfolk district of the Army Corps. of Engineers to build a 560-acre marine terminal on the Portsmouth waterfront in an estimated $358 million investment. (08/02/03, The Virginian-Pilot)