Business Highlights

LOS ANGELES — Discount retailer Target backed off plans to pull in-store promotions of products from Walt Disney after Disney threatened not to ship DVDs of hit movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” a person familiar with the situation said Friday.

The companies are at odds over The Walt Disney Co.’s decision to sell movies online through Apple Computer Co.’s iTunes store for less than it charges Target and other retailers.

The dispute is part of a feud between a number of major retailers and Hollywood studios over online movie sales. Target Corp. stores had removed signs promoting the DVD of the Disney-Pixar animated film "Cars” and other Disney products, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak for either company.

Treasury tightening process

for approving debt issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department is tightening its process for approving the millions of dollars of mortgage-related debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a change that could diminish the footprint of the two giants in the financial markets.

The changes could take effect as soon as January, a senior Treasury official said Friday. The two government-sponsored companies, the biggest buyers and guarantors of home mortgages in the country, have been roiled by accounting scandals and are under pressure from the Bush administration and Republican lawmakers who want their combined multitrillion-dollar holdings to be reduced.

The latest government move is seen as an attempt to bring the companies to the bargaining table over legislation that still could arise in Congress’ lame-duck session.

HP names Wachovia CEO to board, fills void after spy scandal

SAN JOSE — Hewlett-Packard Co. said Friday that G. Kennedy Thompson, the chief executive officer of the banking company Wachovia Corp., was elected to its board of directors, the first appointment to the HP board since three directors departed in the wake of the media-leak spying scandal.

Thompson, 55, was named to the post Thursday, the same day the computer and printer maker reported that fiscal fourth-quarter earnings quadrupled and the company cracked $90 billion in annual revenue for the first time. However, Palo Alto-based HP also disclosed in a regulatory filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission had elevated its informal inquiry into the spying scandal into a formal investigation.

Thompson is not a replacement for a specific board member, but was appointed because of his experience running a large and complex corporation, HP said in a statement. His election brings the total number of HP board members to nine.

The HP board used to have 11 directors, but venture capitalist Tom Perkins resigned in protest in May after learning that private phone records were accessed in the boardroom spying probe. Former presidential adviser George Keyworth II, who was identified as the anonymous source in a news article about a board retreat, resigned in September after the board said it would not nominate him for re-election.

Former Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who initiated the spying investigation, also stepped down in September and was one of five people charged by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer for allegedly violating identity theft and fraud statutes.

All the defendants — Dunn, former HP ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker and outside detectives Ronald DeLia, Matthew DePante and Bryan Wagner — have pleaded not guilty.

Their lawyers appeared in Santa Clara Superior Court on Friday and arranged with the Attorney General’s office to meet privately with a judge on Dec. 4 to discuss ways to resolve the case. The next public hearing was set for Jan. 17 to learn the results of those talks.

Thompson will be paid an annual cash retainer of $50,000 and an annual retainer of $150,000 in restricted stock or stock options, HP said in the regulatory filing.