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Oracle Corp. has agreed to pay $46 million to settle a lawsuit over alleged kickbacks to win government work.

The Department of Justice charged that Sun Microsystems Inc., which Oracle bought last year, and other technology companies paid kickbacks to Accenture PLC for Accenture to recommend that federal agencies buy Sun products.

The Justice Department said last year that the lawsuit covered software contracts that ran from 1998 to 2006 and were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Six other companies including Hewlett-Packard Co. have settled similar charges.

The settlement by Oracle’s America unit also resolved claims that Sun provided incomplete and inaccurate information to government contracting officers during negotiations over contracts with the U.S. Postal Service and two resellers of Sun products. The government said regulations and contracts required Sun to explain how it did business so that contracting officers could negotiate a fair price for government customers.

Government officials said kickbacks and inaccurate information during contract negotiations cost taxpayers money.

Allegations against Sun were first raised in a lawsuit brought by two whistle-blowers, and the government joined their case in 2007.

Shares of Oracle, a software company based in Redwood Shores, Calif., rose 3 cents to close at $32.03.

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A letter from his bank left businessman Tom Neusel outraged.

M&I Bank said the interest rate on his company’s $70,000 loan was jumping to 7.5 percent from 4.25 percent. Just like that.

“This is not a reflection on you in any way,” said the letter, “but more as a result of the increased risk in the economy and general cost of funds increase across the entire banking industry.”

A year and a half after the official end of the Great Recession, banks are still tightfisted with lending, although they are starting to loosen just a bit.

“I have the feeling that it’s starting to come back slowly,” said Dennis Melton, district director for the Small Business Administration in St. Louis. “I’m not getting the phone calls that I used to get saying,

A semiautonomous regional government in Somalia on Friday defied the central government’s decision to end relations with a private security company linked to the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, underscoring the weakness of the authorities in Mogadishu.

Somalia’s Minister of Information Abdulkareem Jama insisted on Friday that the decision to end the relationship with Saracen International applies to regional governments.

“The decision is binding on all Somali territories. That will apply to all parts of Somalia,” said Jama.

But Abdirizak Ahmed, the head of the counter-piracy program in the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland, said it does not necessarily recognize the authority of the federal government to make that decision. Saracen International has already begun training forces in Puntland, whose administration has been distancing itself from the Mogadishu-based government, saying it hasn’t delivered security and services.

“I don’t think the decision they have made will change anything in Puntland,” Ahmed said. “I don’t think it will have an impact on the relationship Puntland has with Saracen … it’s not a (national government) issue.”

Other Puntland officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Last week The Associated Press reported on links between Saracen International and Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater Worldwide. Killings by Blackwater guards in Afghanistan and Iraq _ including a 2007 incident in Baghdad in which 14 Iraqi civilians were shot dead _ raised global concerns over the lack of accountability of private security contractors in war zones.

Lafras Luitingh, the chief operating officer of Saracen International, sent a statement which seemed to recognize that the Saracen deals, at least with Somalia’s federal government, are over.

“We are proud of the work we performed for the Somali government who invited us to provide important counter-piracy and humanitarian assistance. We are ready to serve again if called upon to do so,” it said. Luitingh did not return calls Friday seeking comment.

Saracen has already begun training a force of over 1,000 men in Puntland that is supposed to go after pirate gangs on land. It may also be deployed against Islamist insurgents in the region.

Saracen also signed a deal with a previous Somali government to train a presidential guard and possibly a second antipiracy force of over 1,000 men in the Somali capital, but the new administration voted on Thursday to abandon the deal.

The AP reported last week that several companies linked to Saracen International had given authorities false addresses or registration information. Saracen has declined to identify those funding their multimillion dollar project but Luitingh said last week that the donors are in the process of notifying the U.N. A person familiar with the project and an intelligence report said Prince was involved in the multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates.

Saracen has declined to elaborate on its relationship with Prince. A statement by Prince’s spokesman said simply that he has provided advice to several antipiracy operations.

If the Puntland government defies the national government’s decision to ax the Saracen deals, it could lead to a serious breach between the two regions. Puntland is generally considered more stable, and the U.S. has indicated it would be willing to funnel more aid to the region. But most international donors still focus heavily on the Mogadishu-based government, which controls only a few neighborhoods in the capital and is under assault by an Islamist militia linked to al-Qaida.

The U.S. had previously raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the Saracen deals, saying it was unclear who was funding them, who was responsible and what the new forces would be used for.

Jama said the Somali government does not even have a copy of a signed contract with Saracen, although Luitingh has said the contract was signed on March 1 by the then-deputy prime minister and minister of finance and witnessed by the Somali ambassador to Kenya.

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Toyota Canada, which is trying to recover from a dent to its longstanding reputation for quality and durability, took another hit Wednesday when the company sent notices to owners of 11,700 Lexus luxury cars about possible fuel leaks.

The automaker announced it will conduct a voluntary recall of three 2006-2009 mid-size sedans here to inspect whether the company improperly installed fuel pressure sensors that could eventually cause leaks.

It is Toyota

World shares were mixed Tuesday ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first interest rate meeting of the year and as concerns lingered China will take new moves to cool economic growth.

Oil prices hung below $88 a barrel, extending losses after the Saudi oil minister hinted the world’s biggest oil producer may raise supplies to put the brakes on higher oil prices. In currencies, the dollar fell against the yen but rose against the euro.

European stocks were mixed in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 was marginally lower at 5,940.47. Germany’s DAX rose by 0.2 percent to 7,084.74 and France’s CAC-40 was up 0.3 percent to 4,043.60.

Wall Street was headed for a lower opening after gains the day before. Dow futures were down 0.2 percent to 11,909. Broader S&P 500 futures were down by 0.2 percent to 1,285.50.

Asian stocks presented a mixed picture. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average added 1.2 percent to close at 10,464.42 after the Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate unchanged at virtually zero, hoping to protect a still-fragile economy from veering off track. Exporters rose as Wall Street optimism offset a stronger yen. Sony Corp. jumped 2.3 percent and Canon Inc. gained 0.7 percent.

South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.2 percent to 2,086.67. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 percent to 4,807.80. Sentiment was bolstered by the country’s latest inflation reading, which fell below expectations and reduced the chances of a rate hike by the Australian central bank.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped less than 0.1 percent to 23,788.83. Indexes in Singapore, India and Thailand were also down.

Shares on mainland China were notably down as investors continued to worry about further attempts by the government to slow growth as it tries to get inflation under control.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.7 percent to 2,677.43 and the Shenzhen Composite Index for China’s smaller, second market was down 1.2 percent to 1,136.58.

The Dow’s rise gave stocks a boost but Chinese shares are “capping Asia momentum,” said Castor Pang, research director at Cinda International payday loan lenders.

“The worry is still there in China, especially if they (investors) guess inflation in January and February is still high,” which could mean that authorities may announce an interest rate hike around Chinese New Year, Pang said. The holiday starts Feb. 3.

Figures last week showed growth picked up in the fourth quarter to 9.8 percent from 9.6 percent in the previous quarter. The government also reported the inflation rate at 4.6 percent in December.

Investors had other factors to weigh Tuesday. Later in the day, the U.S. Federal Reserve was to start a two-day meeting to discuss interest rates. Few expect any major shifts, even though two new members to the Fed’s policymaking panel have been skeptics of the Fed’s $600 billion Treasury bond purchase plan to help stimulate the economy.

Also Tuesday, some major U.S. companies will release quarterly earnings, including: E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.; Johnson & Johnson; United States Steel Corp.; and Yahoo Inc.

In New York on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average closed within 20 points of 12,000 Monday, its highest point since June 2008.

Technology stocks rose after Intel Corp. increased its dividend and said it would buy back more of its stock. The company gained 2 percent.

The Dow gained 108.68 points, or 0.9 percent, to 11,980.52. The last time the average closed above 12,000 was June 19, 2008.

The broader Standard and Poor’s 500 index rose 7.49, or 0.6 percent, to 1,290.84. The Nasdaq composite gained 28.01, or 1 percent, to 2,717.55.

In currencies, the dollar fell to 82.39 yen from 82.49 yen late Monday. The euro dropped to $1.3593 from $1.3638.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 19 cents at $87.68 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost $1.24 to settle at $87.87 a barrel on Monday.

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Associated Press business writer Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed.

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The news last week that Apple’s Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence was a big story. But something else about the company got far less attention and could be even more important to investors this year.

Corporations “are adding iPads to their approved device list at an amazing rate,” Peter Oppenheimer, Apple Inc.’s chief financial officer, told analysts Tuesday. Apple’s products, more known for their consumer appeal, are now used in by employees of Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, DuPont and others.

Splurging on $500 iPads is a sign that the business cycle is starting to turn and that companies are starting to spend a record amount of cash they’ve accumulated. If the trend is real, companies will do what consumers haven’t — spark a strong economic recovery. That could push the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to its third straight year of double-digit percentage gains. The last time that happened: the tech-boom days of the late 1990s.

“”You’re going to see a bigger commitment to growth this year because companies have underspent for quite some time,” says Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management.

Financial, technology and energy companies are the most likely to benefit from business spending, says David Bianco, a market strategist at Bank of America. Each group is up about 3 percent this year, nearly one percentage point ahead of the overall S&P 500. Those three groups account for nearly half of index’s value.

The continued success of financial, energy and technology stocks would point to a new stage of this bull market, which has returned nearly 100 percent since it began in March 2009. Consumer discretionary stocks, the group of hotels, retail stores and automakers that depend on consumer spending, outperformed the last two years after being left for dead during the 2008 financial crisis. Those companies are now lagging the market, suggesting that the bounce back from the lows of the recession is over.

“Consumers don’t have the income growth to sustain a more rapid pace of spending,” says Jeffrey Kleintop, a market strategist at LPL Financial. Instead, he says, businesses spending will eventually lead to a pickup in the jobs market.

Corporate spending on technology helped IBM Corp. beat analyst expectations last week. On Tuesday, IBM said that its 7 percent jump in revenue came in part from companies in the U.S. upgrading their computer systems. Its stock jumped almost 4 percent last week.

Energy companies, meanwhile, are leading the market this year with a 3.4 percent jump because of higher demand, a sign of an improving economy. Oil company Schlumberger said Friday profit in the most recent quarter rose 31 percent. And financial companies are benefiting from loans to businesses, a signal that those companies plan to expand. JPMorgan said on its earnings call last week that it added 400 middle-market companies as new commercial loan customers. Bank of America said Friday that demand for business loans stabilized last quarter, while US Bancorp said Wednesday that all of its commercial loans divisions were improving, with the exception of real estate.

Financial companies have the added benefit of being cheap. The price-to-earnings ratio of the financial companies in the S&P 500 index averages 11.6, about half of its historical average. Financial companies are cheaper than any other group except for health care, which costs 11.2 times earnings. Even utilities companies, whose slow growth rates typically make them the lowest priced group in the market, are trading at 13.6 times earnings.

Is it too early to make a prediction that the biggest sectors of the market will continue to do well? After all, investor sentiment is at a level not seen since the market hit its all-time in 2007. That makes some contrarian investors nervous.

The market should continue to rise if history repeats itself. Since 1970, the top performing industry groups in January have gone on to outperform the rest of the S&P index over the rest of the year nearly 75 percent of the time.

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Morgan Stanley CEO John Gorman has received stock grants and options worth about $7.4 million as part of his 2010 pay package.

In a regulatory filing Friday, the company disclosed that Gorman is getting 129,809 restricted shares. Based on the bank’s Friday closing price of $30.01, the stock is worth $3.9 million. He also receives stock options worth $3 fast cash advance.5 million, according to the filing.

The value of Gorman’s total pay package for the year, which would include cash and perks, wasn’t disclosed.

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Moody’s Investors Service is looking at the sustainability of Portugal’s export performance as part of a review of the country’s government-bond ratings.

“We identify the outlook for growth as one of the key considerations,” Anthony Thomas, Moody’s analyst for Portugal, said in an interview in Lisbon yesterday. “We have noted that in the last several quarters we have seen good export performance. Is that sustainable? That is one of the questions we will have to answer as part of the review process.”

Moody’s on Dec. 21 said Portugal’s bond rating may be downgraded one or two levels because of concerns that budget cuts may worsen the country’s “sluggish” economic growth. Moody’s had cut Portugal’s creditworthiness two steps to A1 on July 13. It aims to complete the ongoing review by the end of March, Thomas said.

The government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates is counting on exports such as paper and wood products to support economic expansion as it carries out the deepest spending cuts in more than three decades. The austerity moves are aimed at convincing investors that Portugal can narrow its budget gap further after the Greek debt crisis led to a surge in borrowing costs for the most-indebted euro nations last year.

No Bailout

The difference in yield between Portuguese 10-year bonds and German bunds, Europe’s benchmark, reached a euro-era record of 484 basis points on Nov. 11. The spread was at 395 basis points yesterday.

Portugal’s borrowing costs fell and demand rose at a sale of 750 million euros ($1 billion) of 12-month bills yesterday, adding to a string of auctions this week that signal Europe’s high-deficit countries can still finance their debt. Portugal’s borrowing costs also fell and demand rose at a Jan. 12 auction of 599 million euros of 10-year bonds.

Last month, Portugal said it intends to sell as much as 20 billion euros in bonds in 2011 to finance its budget and redemptions, and plans to sell a new bond through banks in the first quarter. Portugal doesn’t face any bond redemptions until April, with repayments that month and in June worth about 9.5 billion euros. Its debt agency estimates this year’s gross financing needs will be 3 billion euros lower than in 2010.

Funding Costs

“The important point to make is that we don’t rate on the basis of any one bond auction outcome,” Thomas said. “We certainly take notice of them. We notice that last week’s and indeed this morning’s ones went well. It’s really the funding costs over the medium- to long-term that count, not literally on a weekly basis.”

Socrates on Jan. 11 said austerity measures helped reduce the 2010 deficit to less than the forecast 7.3 percent of gross domestic product and that Portugal won’t need a bailout. Ireland in November became the second euro country to seek aid after Greece and the first nation to request it from the European Financial Stability Facility, the region’s rescue fund.

“What we have said is that we don’t view negatively per se a country seeking external assistance,” Thomas said. “Any judgment would depend on the conditions associated with the loan, if it happened.”

The Portuguese central bank forecasts exports will grow 5.9 percent this year and 6.1 percent in 2012, after an estimated 9 percent increase in 2010. Still, it sees the economy shrinking 1.3 percent in 2011 as consumer demand drops and the government cuts spending. The budget forecasts GDP growth of 0.2 percent in 2011, slower than last year’s estimated 1.3 percent pace.

Downgrade

With its economy facing a “deteriorating” outlook, Fitch Ratings on Dec. 23 cut Portugal’s creditworthiness one notch to A+, the fifth-highest level. Fitch said the outlook for that assessment is negative, meaning it is more likely to worsen than improve. Standard & Poor’s said on Nov. 30 that it may lower Portugal’s rating, having already cut it to A- from A+ in April.

Portugal’s government is trimming the wage bill by 5 percent for public-sector workers earning more than 1,500 euros a month and freezing hiring. It’s also raising value-added sales tax by 2 percentage points to 23 percent to help narrow a deficit that amounted to 9.3 percent of GDP in 2009, the region’s fourth-biggest after Ireland, Greece and Spain.

The government has set a target for a budget deficit of 4.6 percent in 2011 and aims to reach the European Union limit of 3 percent in 2012.

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European stock markets rallied Tuesday on hopes that eurozone nations are planning to strengthen and broaden their measures to fight the debt crisis.

An influential German survey also gave the markets a boost with news that investor confidence has risen sharply amid hopes that global economic growth will remain robust. Greece, meanwhile, passed another bond market test, raising euro650 million ($865 million) in a heavily oversubscribed auction.

Still, analyst Ben Potter at IG Markets cautioned that “lingering uncertainty over Eurozone debt could well deliver something of a hangover.”

Ministers from the 17 euro nations meeting in Brussels discussed boosting the size and powers of the region’s bailout fund. Support for stronger action is growing and the bloc is clearly trying to come up with a more comprehensive solution to its crisis, with a final decision expected over the coming months.

The crisis has already forced Greece and Ireland to implement painful budget cuts in exchange for multibillion dollar bailouts. Harsh remedies prescribed by governments have provoked protests and strikes in Portugal, Greece and elsewhere.

The outlook was good in Germany, however, with the ZEW survey noting positive U.S. data has raised hopes of continued worldwide growth. Its confidence index rose to 15.4 points for January, from 4.3 in December.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.0 percent to 6,047.93 while Germany’s DAX rose 1.0 percent to 7,146.48 and the CAC-40 in Paris gained 0.9 percent to 4,009.28.

Oil futures hovered below $92 a barrel, largely shrugging off higher demand forecasts from OPEC and the IEA, the oil cartel and the energy agency. In currencies, the dollar was up against the euro at euro1.3385 and lower than the yen, at 82.5.

Wall Street appeared headed for a muted opening after being closed Monday for a holiday. Dow futures were up 0.3 percent to 11,758 and broader S&P 500 futures were up 0.5 percent at 1,289.59.

The market close in Asia was not as bright. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average closed up 0.2 percent at 10,518.98. Elpida Memory Inc., Japan’s biggest semiconductor maker, rose 1.1 percent after the Nikkei financial daily reported company plans to raise prices of chips used in personal computers.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell slightly, less than 3 points, to 24,153.98 while South Korea’s Kospi was 0.2 percent lower at 2,096.48.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.8 percent higher at 4,801.80 and Chinese shares edged up as investors awaited Thursday’s release of key economic data for the fourth quarter of 2010.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index added 0.1 percent to 2,708.98. The Shenzhen Composite Index of China’s smaller, second exchange rose 0.3 percent to 1,183.48.

“For now, investors would rather wait until they can clearly see the current economic situation,” said Peng Yunliang, an analyst at Shanghai Securities.

Meanwhile, investors across the world were waiting to see how Wall Street reacts to Apple’s announcement that CEO Steve Jobs would be taking a medical leave of absence.

The news could hammer the company’s shares and overall sentiment when trading opens for the week. The company made the announcement a day before its quarterly earnings report.

In Europe on Monday, investors reacted sharply. Apple shares closed in Frankfurt 6.6 percent lower at 243 euros ($323.02).

But some analysts believe the company can still function successfully without Jobs in the corner office full-time _ even with Apple at the forefront of a new revolution in personal computing.

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Singapore’s bankruptcy applications last year fell to the lowest level since 1996 as the city- state’s economy rebounded, posting the world’s fastest growth after Qatar.

The number of bankruptcy filings dropped 20 percent to 2,202 in 2010 from a year earlier, according to data on the Ministry of Law’s website. Bankruptcy applications last year were less than half of the 5,404 cases at the peak in 2003.

“It’s another bright sign of economy recovering strongly from the downturn,” said David Cohen, head of Asian forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. “It should be fairly solid this year, which should be supportive of the financial situation,” he said, forecasting the economy will expand 5 percent in 2011.

Singapore’s economic growth reached 14 best flat iron.7 percent last year as manufacturing surged, capping the biggest annual increase in output since independence in 1965. The growth rate trails only Qatar globally, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.

Singapore’s jobless rate fell to 2.1 percent at the end of September, the smallest in Asia after Thailand. The city’s average wages before adjusting for inflation rose 5.4 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier.

The bankruptcy filings last year were the lowest since 2,089 applications were filed in 1996, one year before the start of the Asian financial crisis.

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