Daily News Roundup - July 24 2012

Essar Oil has tied up a new credit facility from domestic banks to provide a credit line of up to Rs50bn to meet its sales tax liability of Rs61.69bn to the Gujarat government. (ET) Genpact said its master services agreement with financial services major Wells Fargo, to provide business process management services, has been extended through December 2017. (ET) Construction work at JSPL’s steel and power project in Odisha was partially hit Monday as many workers kept away from work and villagers demanded more compensation for loss of land. (ET) Lupin will challenge a US court order that prevents it from selling a low cost generic version of Pfizer’s nerve pain drug Pregabalin for six years. (ET) Aurobindo Pharma Ltd has received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to manufacture and market Metformin Hydrochloride extended release tablets. (BL) Nava Bharat Ventures Ltd is set to increase its power generation capacity to 450 MW by the fourth quarter of the current financial year by commissioning two more plants. (BL) The Ministry of Environment and Forests has turned down a Coal Ministry proposal to fast-track and extend environmental clearance to Coal India’s 13 projects. (BL) Allahabad Bank has slashed interest rates on term deposits of less than Rs50mn in the time band of one to less than two years. The interest rate has been reduced by 25 basis points to 9.25% effective July 24. (BL) Drug majors such as Novartis, Pfizer, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol Mayer Squibb, Sun Pharmaceutical and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories were allegedly involved in clinical trials in which 438 persons died in 2011, according to confidential government data. (BS) Order inflows for engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro revived in the June 2012 quarter, as infrastructure orders picked up. After a 12% drop in order intake in 2011-12, new orders jumped 21% in the latest June quarter. (BL) The violence at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar facility will be treated under "criminal proceedings" and not as a case of "industrial unrest", Haryana Chief Minister said. (BL) Economy Snippets The consumer price index based inflation for agricultural labourers stood at 8.03% in June. This was against the 7.7% level recorded in May. For rural labourers, the all-India CPI inflation was 8.54% in June. (BL) Despite economic volatility, IT spending will grow 16.3% in 2012, according to market research firm International Data Corporation. (BL) The RBI introduced operational norms for NBFC-Factors, prescribing minimum net owned fund of Rs50mn. This will help factoring companies to access higher bank funds. (ET) SEBI has tightened the criteria for stocks to be traded in the futures and options segment by raising the minimum requirement of median quarter-sigma order size for a stock to Rs1mn from Rs0.5mn. It has also trebled the minimum market-wide position limit to Rs3bn for stocks to be introduced in the segment. (ET) State-owned oil retailers have decided to increase petrol prices by 70 paise a litre, following a rise in international prices for crude and depreciation in the rupee. (ET)