A temporary ban has been issued to IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) until prosecutors will finish investigations regarding “special” relations between the company’s employees and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). IBM has been doing business with almost all the agencies and departments of the Government and last year they’ve signed deals for about $1.3 billion, which is about 1% of their 2007 revenue.

Though there are no real evidences, the suspension could be serious if it lasts a few months or a year, because no other federal agencies will award contracts to IBM until the problem is solved. “It’s potentially a big deal,” said Ray Bjorklund, a senior vice president at market research firm Federal Sources Inc.

The impact on stocks was extremely low: down $1.50 to $113.64.

Source

Hours after receiving anti-trust clearance from the European Commission, Google closed their DoubleClick acquisition and took over management right away. The merger has been announced one year ago when the U.S. anti trust authorities gave it green light.

While there has been voices objecting against the ruling the EU Commission said

“Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment”

DoubleClick is one of the biggest ad serving companies and it was bought by Google for $3.1 billion in cash. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares rose 4 percent after the news to $430.19.

via Yahoo!News (photo by vividcontext.com)