Disclosure Of Information

Merrell Williams, the mole who became the tobacco industry's worst nightmare, hardly seemed suited to the role. He had floated from one dreary job to the next, never staying very long in one place. Unfortunately for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., after Williams was hired as a lowly document analyst with access to company secrets, he grew intensely committed to his work. For four nerve-racking years, Williams led a secret life in Louisville, Ky.

Two weeks ago the state's giant CalPERS pension fund announced its annual "hit list," 10 American companies whose stocks have been such dogs that the fund intends to bully them into action "to enhance performance for the benefit . . . of all shareholders."

As his HIV gradually asserts itself, so does a sense of inevitability. There will come a time, this Los Angeles policeman knows, when he develops AIDS. And there will come a time when he cannot hide that fact. HIV has been his secret, at first so fiercely guarded that he barely acknowledged it to himself. He was at work, surrounded by fellow officers, when a doctor's voice on the telephone informed him he had the AIDS virus. "All I could think of was, pull it together," he recalls.

University of California attorneys Thursday asked for a court order to block public disclosure of information from depositions in lawsuits filed in connection with its fertility clinic scandal. University attorneys argued in court papers that the move was necessary to protect the privacy of patients, to reassure publicity-shy witnesses and to protect the integrity of future jury pools.

For 34 years, James F. Mullins worked as a lab technician for the same company, in the same town, doing much the same thing--testing the chemical makeup of drugs manufactured by what was fast becoming one of America's premier pharmaceutical concerns, Pfizer Inc. He wasn't on the corporate fast track. He never aspired to be president. But he showed up for work each day, did his job well and took home about $35,000 annually.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John E. Ryan on Thursday ordered debt acquisition firms that have purchased vendors' claims against bankrupt Orange County for as little as 30 cents on the dollar to disclose that the county is offering to pay those bills in full. Firms such as San Diego-based Debt Acquisition Co. of America have solicited vendors with offers to purchase their claims for 30% to 70% of their worth.

Politically, he goofed. Big time. But did Deputy Mayor Michael F. Keeley break any laws, violate any trusts or shred any ethical standards when he tipped off opposing attorneys to the city's legal strategy by leaking a confidential memo in the midst of a long-running court battle? "That's the kind of question where, if you got two lawyers together [to debate it] you'd get three opinions," former Los Angeles city attorney Ira Reiner said.

Almost from the day in July 1993 that real estate attorney Michael Keeley moved with his boss into the mayor's suite at Los Angeles City Hall, he has churned a mighty rough wake. Part of that could be expected--inevitable fallout from his steady emergence as the leading foot soldier in business-oriented Mayor Richard Riordan's crusade to reshape a city government almost as sprawling as Los Angeles itself.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday took the unusual step of commenting on a report about an agency investigation, saying an article in the Washington Post about Fidelity Investments contained unspecified inaccuracies. An SEC spokesman said, "It is the commission's policy not to comment on any specific reviews of the existence or nature of any matter under inquiry.