Panasonic Corp logos are seen at an electronics store in Tokyo November 15, 2012.

TOKYO | Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:31am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Corp said on Friday that it would appeal a decision by the European Commission to fine it 252 million euros ($327 million) on charges of fixing prices for TV and computer monitor cathode-ray tubes along with five other companies.

The European Commission fined six firms, including Philips, LG Electronics Toshiba Corp Samsung SDI and French company Technicolor a total of 1.47 billion euros, its biggest antitrust penalty in history.

The Commission on Dec 5 said executives from the European and Asian companies had met until six years ago to fix prices and divide up markets for TV and computer monitor cathode-ray tubes, a business that has since been replaced by flat panel displays.

Panasonic in a statement said it "will seek a fair judgment".

Until now, the Commission's biggest antitrust penalty had been a 1.38 billion euro fine imposed on participants in a car glass cartel in 2008.

(Reporting by Tokyo Newsroom; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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CHICAGO | Thu Aug 9, 2012 8:18pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A ruling in the case of failed futures brokerage Sentinel Management Group could make it more difficult for customers to recoup money lost in the much larger collapse of MF Global, according to Sentinel's bankruptcy trustee.

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling that puts Bank of New York Mellon ahead of former customers of Sentinel in the line of those seeking the return of money lost in the 2007 failure of the suburban Chicago-based futures broker.

The appeals court affirmed an earlier district court ruling that the bank had a "secured position" on a $312 million loan it gave to Sentinel, which turned out to have been secured by customer money.

Futures brokers are required to keep customers' funds in dedicated accounts to protect them from being used for anything other than client business.

However, Thursday's ruling suggests that brokerages can use customer funds to pay off other creditors, Sentinel trustee Fred Grede told Reuters.

"I don't think that's what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had in mind" with its requirement that brokers keep customer money separate from their own, he said.

"It does not bode well for the protection of customer funds."

Worse, Grede said, is that the ruling suggests that a brokerage that allows customer money to be mixed with its own is not necessarily committing fraud.

That may raise the bar for proving that MF Global Holdings Ltd, under then-CEO Jon Corzine, misused customer funds as it scrambled to meet margin calls to back bets on European debt in the brokerage's final days. A $1.6 billion customer shortfall remains.

Corzine has said he did not know about the transfer of any customer money.

"I'm sure Mr. Corzine's attorneys will get ahold of this ruling and use it for all it's worth," Grede said.

A lawyer for Corzine, who has not been charged with any crimes, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CORZINE MAY STILL FACE SCRUTINY

CME Group Executive Chairman Terrence Duffy, whose firm was MF Global's frontline regulator, has said MF Global made unlawful transfers of customer money to plug its own liquidity needs.

James Koutoulas, head of the Commodity Customer Coalition, which has been an advocate for MF Global clients, said Corzine could still face scrutiny for the transfers.

The Sentinel ruling is "not an end-all-be-all acquittal for Corzine," he said.

Sentinel allegedly pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in customer assets to secure an overnight loan at Bank of New York Mellon, leaving the bank in a secured position but Sentinel's customers out millions.

Customer funds were allegedly moved from the protected accounts to other accounts so they could be used as collateral for loans to Sentinel's own trading operations.

The appeals court said that "perhaps the bank should have known that Sentinel violated segregation requirements" but agreed with the district court's earlier ruling that "such a lack of care does not rise to the level of the egregious misconduct" needed to reprioritize a claim.

"That Sentinel failed to keep client funds properly segregated is not, on its own, sufficient to rule as a matter of law that Sentinel acted ‘with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud' its customers," U.S. Circuit Judge John D. Tinder wrote in the ruling.

The decision was a blow for Grede, who had sought to strip Bank of New York Mellon of its secured position.

Sentinel, whose customers are missing about $600 million, largely managed money for other futures brokers, delivering outsized returns that, Grede says, were juiced up by improperly using customer money to secure loans that went to fund risky trades.

The scheme unraveled when the credit crisis hit in the summer of 2007.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gary Hill and Phil Berlowitz)

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1 of 11. Children watch the fireworks during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Tripoli's liberation in Tripoli, August 8, 2012.

TRIPOLI | Thu Aug 9, 2012 1:29am EDT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's ruling council handed over power to a newly elected national assembly on Wednesday in the North African country's first peaceful transition of power in its modern history but which comes amid heightened violence.

In a late-night ceremony held under tight security in Tripoli, the National Transitional Council (NTC), political arm of the opposition forces that toppled Muammar Gaddafi a year ago, handed over to the national congress, elected in July.

NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil symbolically passed on the reins to the oldest member of the new 200-member assembly, Mohammed Ali Salim.

"The National Transitional Council hands over the constitutional duties for leading the state to the general national congress, which from now on is the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people," Jalil said to loud cheers.

In a speech, Jalil, who announced he would retire after ending his NTC chief post, acknowledged "mistakes" had been made during an "extraordinary" transitional period and said security and disarmament issues had not been resolved in time.

The congress, whose members took an oath led by Salim, will now name a new chairman while the NTC will be disbanded. A first meeting was scheduled after the ceremony.

Large crowds gathered in Tripoli's Martyrs Square to celebrate the handover as fireworks lit up the sky.

The assembly will name a new prime minister who will pick his government, pass laws and steer Libya to full parliamentary elections after a new constitution is drafted next year.

A liberal coalition led by wartime rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril won 39 of the 80 party seats in the congress, while its Islamist rivals, the Justice and Construction Party - the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood - won 17.

However the remaining 120 seats are in the hands of independent candidates whose allegiances are hard to pin down.

In the battle to hold sway over the assembly, where key decisions will require a two-thirds majority, Jibril's National Forces Alliance and the JCP are scrambling to form alliances with independents and smaller parties.

Some independents, distrustful of both sides, have spoken of forming their own coalition.

SECURITY PROBLEMS

Getting a grip on security in an often anarchic post-Gaddafi Libya will be the priority for the country's new rulers, Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour earlier told Reuters.

The run-up to the transition has been overshadowed by several violent incidents in the past week that have shown the country's precarious stability.

These include a car bomb in Tripoli near the offices of the military police and an explosion at the empty former military intelligence offices in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the revolt against Gaddafi.

"Clearly they worry us, but at the same time we are investigating them. We are trying to find out who is behind this," Abu Shagour said. "We were able to improve security from when we started, but there's still a way to go. Security is top of the agenda for whomever will be coming into power."

The interim authorities that took over after Gaddafi's overthrow successfully led Libya to the elections. But the government has struggled to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups who refuse to lay down their weapons.

On Sunday, security forces killed three armed men suspected of being behind seven failed bomb plots. That same day, the International Committee of the Red Cross suspended its work in Benghazi and the port city of Misrata after one of its compounds was attacked with grenades and rockets.

This followed the kidnapping of seven Iranian aid workers by armed men in Benghazi on July 31.

Still, Abu Shagour expressed optimism that the problems could be overcome. "I don't think it is going to get worse, I think things will get better as we move on. Our security forces are getting better," he said.

The date of the handover is symbolic - corresponding to 20 Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, in the Islamic calendar. Last year, 20 Ramadan was Aug 20 - when rebels overran Tripoli, forcing Gaddafi to flee.

(Editing by Michael Roddy and Philip Barbara)

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