Nation & world business briefs

AVIATION: Virgin ticket sales OK'd
Virgin America Inc., a budget airline partly owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said it received U.S. approval to begin ticket sales and plans to start flights next month.
Dates for the initial service, with 10 Airbus SAS planes, will be announced in the next few weeks, the carrier said in a statement on its Web site Wednesday.

MEDIA: Talks frustrate Murdoch
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch appeared frustrated Wednesday with the state of talks with the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Co., saying it was unclear where the company's controlling shareholders stood.
Murdoch has offered $5 billion for the company but has been entangled for several weeks in negotiations with the Bancroft family.
"They keep changing their minds," Murdoch said during a conference of top media executives hosted by investment banker Herbert Allen.
MINING: Strike impact to be small
Work at the nation's largest platinum and palladium mine near Billings, Mont., slowed to a crawl Wednesday as about 900 union employees launched their second strike in three years over wages and benefits.
The strike's broader impacts were expected to be limited. Ample supplies of platinum and palladium still are available on the global market, said Victor Flores, a senior mining analyst with HSBC Securities, Inc.
Also, automakers that rely on platinum as a component in catalytic converters have sufficient stockpiles on hand to weather the Montana strike, Flores and auto company representatives said.
Stillwater Mining has contracts with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Mitsubishi to supply the platinum used in catalytic converters to cut vehicle pollution.
RESTAURANTS: Yum! Brands profit up
Yum! Brands Inc., owner of the Pizza Hut and KFC restaurant chains, said second-quarter profit rose 12% on higher sales in China, its fastest-growing market.
Net income increased to $214 million from $192 million a year earlier, Louisville, Ky.-based Yum said Wednesday. Revenue climbed 9% to $2.37 billion.
RETAIL: Liz Claiborne to cut jobs
Liz Claiborne Inc. plans to cut 600 to 800 jobs and is considering whether to sell 16 brands in an effort to cut costs and focus on profitable fashion lines.
Under a restructuring plan announced Wednesday, the apparel designer and marketer expects to save $100 million in 2008 and an additional $90 million over the following two years.
The 600 to 800 jobs represent about 7% to 9% of the company's non-retail-based global workforce.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Lawmaker knocks iPhone
The Apple iPhone has enjoyed favorable reviews since its debut, but it drew some rare criticism on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The phones -- which cost between $500 and $600 -- are usable only on AT&T's wireless network and will remain that way until 2012.
Even though the phones become expensive paperweights if customers quit AT&T's wireless plan, the company still will charge a $175 early termination fee, said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of a House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet

Business and management

When businesses need to raise money (called 'capital'), more laws come into play. A highly complex set of laws and regulations govern the offer and sale of investment securities (the means of raising money) in most Western countries. These regulations can require disclosure of a lot of specific financial and other information about the business and give buyers certain remedies. Because "securities" is a very broad term, most investment transactions will be potentially subject to these laws, unless a special exemption is available.

Capital may be raised through private means, by public offer (IPO) on a stock exchange, or in many other ways. Major stock exchanges include the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq (USA), the London Stock Exchange (UK), the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan), and so on. Most countries with capital markets have at least one.

Business that have gone "public" are subject to extremely detailed and complicated regulation about their internal governance (such as how executive officers' compensation is determined) and when and how information is disclosed to the public and their shareholders. In the United States, these regulations are primarily implemented and enforced by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other Western nations have comparable regulatory bodies.

As noted at the beginning, it is impossible to enumerate all of the types of laws and regulations that impact on business today. In fact, these laws have become so numerous and complex, that no business lawyer can learn them all, forcing increasing specialization among corporate attorneys. It is not unheard of for teams of 5 to 10 attorneys to be required to handle certain kinds of corporate transactions, due to the sprawling nature of modern regulation. Commercial law spans general corporate law, employment and labor law, healthcare law, securities law, M&A law (who specialize in acquisitions), tax law, ERISA law (ERISA in the United States governs employee benefit plans), food and drug regulatory law, intellectual property law (specializing in copyrights, patents, trademarks and such), telecommunications law, and more.

In Thailand, for example, it is necessary to register a particular amount of capital for each employee, and pay a fee to the government for the amount of capital registered. There is no legal requirement to prove that this capital actually exists, the only requirement is to pay the fee. This is a typical example of a corrupt government using its power to create laws in order to steal money. Overall, processes like this are detrimental to the development and GDP of a country, but often exist in "feudal" developing countries.

Intellectual property

Businesses often have important "intellectual property" that needs protection from competitors in order to stay profitable. This could require patents or copyrights or preservation of trade secrets. Most businesses have names, logos and similar branding techniques that could benefit from trademarking. Patents and copyrights in the United States are largely governed by federal law, while trade secrets and trademarking are mostly a matter of state law. Because of the nature of intellectual property, a business needs protection in every jurisdiction in which they are concerned about competitors. Many countries are signatories to international treaties concerning intellectual property.

Business and management

The study of the efficient and effective operation of a business is called management. The main branches of management are financial management, marketing management, human resource management, strategic management, production management, service management, information technology management, and business intelligence.