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Thomson Financial News Singapore High Court stops BNP's wind-up petition vs SembCorp Marine unit 06.10.08, 9:24 PM ET SINGAPORE (Thomson Financial) - The Singapore High Court has restrained BNP Paribas from filing a winding up petition against Jurong Shipyard Pte. Ltd. (JSPL), a unit of SembCorp Marine Ltd., over an unsettled debt that stemmed from unauthorized foreign exchange transactions. SembCorp Marine and JSPL are still contesting the validity of the foreign exchange transactions worth $303 million entered into by its former finance director Wee Sing Guan on behalf of JSPL. 'The High Court agreed with JSPL that the question whether BNP Paribas (other-otc: BNPQY.PK - news - people ) knew or ought to have known of Wee's lack of authority to carry out the unauthorised transactions raised factual disputes and was serious enough to merit a full trial,' SembCorp Marine said in a statement. BNP Paribas had demanded payment of $50.72 million from JSPL on November 21, 2007 within 21 days, and threatened to seek dissolution of the company if payment was not made. JSPL had applied for a court injunction six days later. SembCorp Marine had recognized $208 million in losses from the unauthorized transactions in the fourth quarter of 2007. ($1 = S$1.37) http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds...afx5102598.html

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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/beij...8BEBBDEACB9C%7D Beijing court reportedly sides with Baidu in music piracy case By MarketWatch Last update: 5:21 a.m. EST Dec. 31, 2007 BEIJING (AFP) -- A Beijing appeals court has found top Chinese search engine Baidu.com not guilty of property rights infringement for posting links to websites offering illegal music downloads, state media said Monday. The ruling issued Sunday by the People's High Court of Beijing brings to an end a case brought by several major international music labels, including EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music, Xinhua news agency reported. The music companies accused Baidu of facilitating illegal downloads without their permission and demanded an apology, suspension of the activity, and RMB1.67 million ($222,666) in compensation, it said. The report offered no further details on the ruling. However, a Beijing intermediate court ruled in November that Baidu's links to the music didn't constitute infringement as the music was downloaded to the Web servers of third parties, Xinhua said at the time. The rulings appeared to run counter to a decision by another Beijing court late last year, which ordered Baidu to pay a distributor of EMI RMB68,000 ($8,400) in compensation for providing such web links. Baidu had argued that the MP3 search engine it provided was the same as other search engines providing links to web pages, news and pictures. As Internet usage has soared in Asia in recent years, the music industry's revenue has fallen dramatically, largely due to MP3 downloads from unauthorized sources.