IN BRIEF

Five companies land federal telecom pact

Five companies — AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Qwest Communications, Sprint Nextel and Verizon — on Thursday were awarded a federal telecommunications contract worth up to $20 billion over 10 years.

The winners of the so-called Networx Enterprise contract must now compete with each other to win business from agencies looking to improve their voice, data and other telecom services.

HARTFORD, Conn.

Lawyer accuses GE of unfairly favoring men

A high-ranking General Electric Co. attorney sued the industrial conglomerate Thursday, accusing officials of giving unfair preference to men in promotions to top-paying legal jobs.

Lorene Schaefer, general counsel of Erie, Pa.-based GE Transportation, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. She’s asking the judge to certify a class of 1,500 plaintiffs that includes women who hold entry-level executive jobs and all the company’s female lawyers, potentially seeking damages of $500 million.

Schaefer, 43, said she decided to file a lawsuit after learning in April that she was to be demoted from her job as GE Transportation’s top legal officer.

GE spokesman Gary Sheffer said the company denied Schaefer’s accusations.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Wachovia planning to acquire A.G. Edwards

A little more than a year after acquiring one of the nation’s top mortgage lenders, Wachovia said Thursday it would buy A.G. Edwards for $6.8 billion in a deal that will create the nation’s second-largest retail brokerage.

The combined brokerage unit will operate as Wachovia Securities and will have more than 3,300 brokerage locations nationwide, more than $1.1 trillion in client assets and nearly 15,000 financial advisers.

Other A.G. Edwards businesses, including research, underwriting, investment banking, mutual funds and trust, will be consolidated into Wachovia’s existing businesses.

NEW YORK

Authorities corral prolific spam artist

Junk e-mail continued to land in mailboxes around the world Thursday, despite the arrest a day earlier of a man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers.

Even if Robert Alan Soloway is ultimately convicted and his operations shuttered, spam experts say dozens are in line to fill the void.

"In the short term, the effect it’s going to have is more symbolic more than anything else," said John Levine, co-author of "Fighting Spam for Dummies." "Soloway is a large spammer, but hardly the only large spammer."

The 27-year-old Soloway was once on a top 10 list of spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization. Others have since topped him, mostly based in countries out of reach of U.S. or European law.

ST. LOUIS

Justice Department OKs Monsanto deal

The Justice Department on Thursday approved Monsanto Co.’s $1.5 billion acquisition of cotton company Delta and Pine Land Co. but required the companies to sell assets related to cottonseed production.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett said the divestiture is necessary to make sure the merger doesn’t quash competition in the U.S. cottonseed market.

To make the deal possible, Monsanto and Delta created a new cottonseed company that Monsanto will sell to spur competition in the marketplace.

SEATTLE

Product returns push Costco profits down

Costco Wholesale Corp. said Thursday its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 5 percent as the company continued to factor in the higher cost of product returns it discovered during an internal study this year. However, sales at the warehouse retailer advanced at a double-digit pace.

Earnings for the quarter ended May 13 slid to $224 million from $235.6 million. Per-share profit was unchanged year-over-year at 49 cents.

Sales rose 10 percent to $14.34 billion from $13.01 billion. The increase in the returns reserve cut sales by $228.2 million.

The company operates three stores in the Las Vegas Valley.

ROCKVILLE, Md.

Judge refuses to block MedImmune deal

A judge Thursday refused to block a pending $15.6 billion acquisition of MedImmune by AstraZeneca PLC, saying the purported MedImmune shareholder who filed a lawsuit could not prove he owned the company’s stock.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Marielsa Bernard denied a request by Chris Larson, of San Diego, to halt the MedImmune-AstraZeneca deal, which is expected to close in June. A $58 per share tender offer by AstraZeneca to MedImmune shareholders was set to expire at the end of Thursday.

MedImmune, maker of vaccines such as the nasal spray drug FluMist, agreed in April to a takeover by the British company.

NEW YORK

Bond prices decline amid economic news

U.S. treasury bond prices were buffeted by a heavy slate of economic data Thursday.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the 10-year Treasury note was down $1.25 per $1,000 in face value, or 0.13 points, from its level at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction, rose to 4.89 percent from 4.87 percent.

The 30-year bond fell 0.13 points. Its yield was unchanged at 5.01 percent.