Basf Inc

Roche Holding and BASF, which last week agreed to pay record U.S. fines totaling $725 million for conspiring to fix global vitamin prices, may also face stiff European Union fines, EU Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert suggested. A resolution to the EU's own investigation is still months away, however, and Van Miert would not say which companies the EU may fine. Roche, Europe's fourth-biggest drug maker, agreed last week to pay $500 million--the largest U.S.

Chemical company Engelhard Corp. abandoned months of resistance Tuesday and agreed to a $5-billion takeover from German rival BASF. Engelhard's management decided to back BASF's twice-sweetened offer of $39 a share for the Iselin, N.J.-based company and would recommend that its shareholders accept it, the companies said. Including debt, the deal is worth about $5.6 billion. BASF has said the deal would create a world player in chemical products such as pigments and catalysts.

* Abbott Laboratories agreed to acquire BASF's drug unit for $6.9 billion in a deal designed to boost its drug research business and give it access to a number of experimental medicines. The Knoll pharmaceutical unit, which employs 10,700 people, is expected to post $2.1 billion in sales this year, mainly because of its Meridia obesity treatment drug and its thyroid drug, Synthroid. The company also has other new projects, including the D2E7 arthritis drug, that make it a prize catch.

A unit of German chemical group BASF has acquired Burtin Polyurethanes Corp. in Santa Ana for an undisclosed sum. BASF said Friday that the acquisition is part of the company's strategy of increasing its presence in spray-applied urethanes.

BASF has made a $4.9-billion hostile, all-cash offer for U.S. pigment and chemicals maker Engelhard Corp., aiming to become the world's leading producer of pollution control materials, the German chemicals company said Tuesday. BASF said its $37-a-share offer -- nearly a 23% premium over Engelhard's Dec. 30 closing price -- was unlikely to meet any significant regulatory hurdles.

German, California Firms to Team Up: The joint venture between BASF and Lynx Therapeutics Inc. of Hayward will focus on developing technology for early identification of the side effects of chemicals. Lynx was founded in 1992 and has 55 employees. It is the first U.S. biotechnology company to invest in Germany with a German company in the area of gene technology. BASF will hold 51% in the joint venture, to be called BASF-Lynx Bioscience and based in Heidelberg, Germany.

BASF Cuts Emissions: BASF Corp. said that it has greatly reduced emissions of 17 chemicals at its U.S. plants, including one in Anaheim. The giant Parsippany, N.J.-based chemical company cut emissions by 60% at seven plants around the nation as part of a project run by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. That exceeds the goal of the Industrial Toxics Project, better known as "33/50," which calls for a 50% reduction by 1995.

Dow Chemical Co., DuPont Co. and Germany's BASF, Bayer and Celanese agreed to form an online venture that will supply the $50-billion market for plastics-related materials and equipment. The unnamed company will operate as a separate entity and is expected to start Oct. 1. The venture, which will supply thermoplastic resins, molding equipment, maintenance supplies and services, initially will be worth about $50 million, the companies said.

A German conglomerate's plans to sell its adhesive fibers plant here were canceled Wednesday in a dispute over the value of the 270-employee unit. Officials of BASF Corp. in New Jersey said the company will continue operating the plant at 1440 N. Kraemer Blvd. In August, BASF had announced an agreement to sell its worldwide structural adhesives business to Hexcel Corp., a chemical manufacturer based in the Northern California community of Dublin, near San Francisco. BASF Corp.

An $8.5-billion lawsuit was filed in federal court against Germany's BASF AG and U.S. unit Knoll Pharmaceutical Co alleging they suppressed a medical study to control the U.S. market for thyroid drugs, attorneys said. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleged that BASF, Knoll and Boots Pharmaceutical concealed a seven-year university study that concluded that their thyroid drug was no better than cheaper, generic brands to treat people suffering from hypothyroidism.

* Abbott Laboratories agreed to acquire BASF's drug unit for $6.9 billion in a deal designed to boost its drug research business and give it access to a number of experimental medicines. The Knoll pharmaceutical unit, which employs 10,700 people, is expected to post $2.1 billion in sales this year, mainly because of its Meridia obesity treatment drug and its thyroid drug, Synthroid. The company also has other new projects, including the D2E7 arthritis drug, that make it a prize catch.

Four former executives of European vitamin companies agreed Thursday to plead guilty, pay fines and serve time in U.S. prisons for scheming to fix the prices of an alphabet soup of vitamins around the world during the 1990s, the Justice Department said. In four criminal cases filed in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the department charged three former BASF executives and one former F. Hoffmann-LaRoche Ltd.

Dow Chemical Co., DuPont Co. and Germany's BASF, Bayer and Celanese agreed to form an online venture that will supply the $50-billion market for plastics-related materials and equipment. The unnamed company will operate as a separate entity and is expected to start Oct. 1. The venture, which will supply thermoplastic resins, molding equipment, maintenance supplies and services, initially will be worth about $50 million, the companies said.

Roche Holding and BASF, which last week agreed to pay record U.S. fines totaling $725 million for conspiring to fix global vitamin prices, may also face stiff European Union fines, EU Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert suggested. A resolution to the EU's own investigation is still months away, however, and Van Miert would not say which companies the EU may fine. Roche, Europe's fourth-biggest drug maker, agreed last week to pay $500 million--the largest U.S.

Two European giants in the vitamin industry agreed Thursday to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay a record $725 million in fines for conspiring to fix and inflate vitamin prices around the world in the 1990s. The scheme, said Justice Department officials, reached into virtually every American household through the artificial inflation of prices for over-the-counter dietary supplements and fortified products such as cereal and cattle nutrients.

Flex Products Inc. said BASF AG, one of Germany's largest chemical makers, agreed to settle a year-old patent suit by paying royalties to Flex if it uses two forms of the company's film pigments. Flex, a unit of Optical Coating Laboratory Inc., accused BASF of violating its patents in marketing an automotive-paint pigment in the U.S. Flex asked in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit that BASF be barred from importing, making or selling the pigment in the U.S.

Two European giants in the vitamin industry agreed Thursday to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay a record $725 million in fines for conspiring to fix and inflate vitamin prices around the world in the 1990s. The scheme, said Justice Department officials, reached into virtually every American household through the artificial inflation of prices for over-the-counter dietary supplements and fortified products such as cereal and cattle nutrients.

An $8.5-billion lawsuit was filed in federal court against Germany's BASF AG and U.S. unit Knoll Pharmaceutical Co alleging they suppressed a medical study to control the U.S. market for thyroid drugs, attorneys said. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleged that BASF, Knoll and Boots Pharmaceutical concealed a seven-year university study that concluded that their thyroid drug was no better than cheaper, generic brands to treat people suffering from hypothyroidism.