The Wall Street Journal - 08.11.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Friday, November 8, 2019 |A9B

GREATERNEWYORKWATCH

HARLEM

Child and Parents

Found Dead at Home

An estranged couple and

their child are dead in apparent

double homicide and a suicide,

the New York Police Department

said Thursday.

Police responding to a 911 call

found 42-year-old Jennifer

Schlecht and 5-year-old

Abaynesh Schlecht Tedla dead in

a Harlem apartment at around

9:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

The mother’s body was in a

bathroom and the little girl was

in a bedroom. The child’s father,

46-year-old Yonathan Tedla, was

also dead in a bedroom.

—Associated Press

NEW YORK CITY

MSG to Spin Off

Entertainment Unit

Madison Square Garden Co.

has approved a planto spin off

its concert-hosting and entertain-

ment-venue operations as a sep-

arate public company from its

sports business, which includes

the New York Knicks and New

York Rangers.

The entertainment company

would include New York’s Madi-

son Square Garden, Hulu Theater,

Radio City Music Hall and Beacon

Theatre, among other venues. It

would also include MSG’s book-

ings business and productions,

such as the Radio City Rockettes

and “Christmas Spectacular.”

The sports company will still

house the New York Knicks and

the New York Rangers as well as

Knicks Gaming, its e-sports unit.

The proposed transaction will

give MSG shareholders stakes in

both companies.

—Kimberly Chin

CONNECTICUT

Governor Unveils

Transportation Plan

Gov. Ned Lamont said he

hopes commuting times in Con-

necticut will greatly improve by

fixing major traffic choke points

across the state.

The Democrat on Thursday

officially unveiled his 10-year,

CT2030 initiative, the second

transportation improvement plan

he has offered since taking of-

fice in January.

He acknowledged his earlier

proposal, which included dozens

of tolls, was a “bridge too far” for

many state lawmakers. The new

proposal calls for 14 tolls on

mostly major bridges. Mr. La-

mont’s plan also invests in airport,

bus, rail and portimprovements.

Both labor and business lead-

ers are voicing support for Mr.

Lamont’s reworked initiative. Re-

publican lawmakers say they re-

main concerned about the tolls.

—Associated Press

Police at a Harlem building where three people were found dead.

RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Lawyers for Exxon have

called the case meritless and

said reasonable investors

wouldn’t expect to know such

proprietary calculations.

“Exxon Mobil did not have two

sets of books,” Theodore Wells

Jr., a lawyer for Exxon, said

Thursday. “Exxon Mobil had

two distinct metrics that were

used for different purposes.”

In court Thursday, Mr.

Wells asked the judge not to

drop the fraud counts, saying

the company had a right to re-

ceive a ruling on those claims.

The claims had damaged the

reputation of the company and

its executives, he said.

“That leaves a cloud over

the reputation of the people,”

he said.

“Because of this case, and

it’s all connected, we have got

copycat cases tracking this case

word-for-word in private fed-

eral-securities cases, books and

record cases,” Mr. Wells said.

Mr. Wells said the Massa-

chusetts attorney general had

recently sued the company as

well. A spokeswoman for the

Massachusetts attorney gen-

eral didn’t respond to a re-

quest for comment.

State Supreme Court Jus-

tice Barry Ostrager said that

while he believed the New

York attorney general had a

right to withdraw the claims,

he would read the lawyers’

written arguments on the

matter. He has indicated he

would rule on the case in as

little as a month.

If Justice Ostrager rules in

favor of the attorney general,

it could spur further lawsuits

or investigations into Exxon

and other oil companies. A

ruling in Exxon’s favor would

likely insulate the company

against such claims, and, from

the company’s perspective,

bolster its reputation on cli-

mate-change issues.

Either side would likely ap-

peal the judge’s ruling.

The New York attorney gen-

eral’s office Thursday dropped

part of its securities-fraud

case against Exxon Mobil

Corp. on the final day of a rare

climate-change-related trial

that has pushed the oil giant’s

accounting practices into pub-

lic view.

Attorney general’s office

lawyers withdrew two fraud

counts at the end of a nearly

three-week trial examining

Exxon’s public and private es-

timates of potential climate-

change regulations on its fu-

ture business. But the attorney

general’s office proceeded

with two counts that require

the elements of the Martin

Act, a New York state anti-

fraud law with a lower bar of

proof: that Exxon made mis-

representations to investors

and that those deceptions

mattered.

The attorney general’s of-

fice pulled back the civil fraud

counts during closing argu-

ments of a trial that has been

closely watched for its impli-

cations for the largest Ameri-

can oil company and the en-

ergy industry in general.

Attorney General Letitia

James has accused Exxon of

deceiving its investors about

its financial modeling for poli-

cies that countries might en-

act to combat climate change.

The oil company told investors

it used one formula to account

for these future regulations,

but internally used lower num-

bers, the office has argued.

Jonathan Zweig, a lawyer in

the attorney general’s office,

said the case wasn’t about

whether Exxon’s employees

were good people, as the com-

pany’s lawyers suggested.

“The question in this case is

whether Exxon’s disclosures

were accurate,” Mr. Zweig

said. “And the evidence shows

that they were not.”

BYCORINNERAMEY

Attorney General

Drops Two Exxon

Fraud Counts

Bound for the Big City

HEADED FOR FAME: This year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a 77-foot-tall, 12-ton Norway

spruce, was loaded onto a flatbed truck after being cut down Thursday in Florida, N.Y. The tree will

be erected in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday, and the tree-lighting ceremony will be Dec. 4.

DIANE BONDAREFF/ASSOCIATED PRESS FOR TISHMAN SPEYER

Struggling broadband pro-
viderFrontier Communica-
tionsCorp. is ending health
benefits for some of its retir-
ees in Connecticut, according
to the local union.
Private companies have
been phasing out retiree pen-
sions and health coverage for
new hires for decades. But
rarely do they stop retirement
benefits for former employees
already receiving them, accord-
ing to health and insurance in-
dustry executives.
Frontier, which has 22,
employees in 29 states, is try-
ing to reduce its $17 billion
debt load, and late last month
faced calls to file for bank-
ruptcy. The company this week
reported its third-quarter re-
sults, showing a net loss of
$345 million.
A spokesman for Frontier
declined to comment.
More than 100 Frontier re-
tirees are expected to lose
their health benefits under a
new collective bargaining
agreement, said Dave Weidlich,
president of CWA Local 1298,
which covers more than 2,

Frontier workers. Union mem-
bers are currently voting to
ratify the new two-year con-
tract, with the final tally
scheduled for Nov. 21.
Frontier isn’t required by
law to negotiate retiree medi-
cal benefits and company rep-
resentatives declined to do so
during recent negotiations, Mr.
Weidlich said.
Sean O’Leary, who took an
early retirement package in
2017, said he and other former
longtime employees feel be-
trayed.
“We spent many a day and
night working storms and
away from our families,” said
Mr. O’Leary, 60 years old, a
former cable repairman. “I
made a good living that al-
lowed me to retire early, I’m
not biting the hand that fed
me. But, 31 years I helped build
that company.”
Mr. O’Leary and many of his
fellow retirees in Connecticut
started working for the “tele-
phone company” when it was
owned by Southern New Eng-
land Telecommunications Corp.
SNET was acquired in the late
1990s by SBC Communications
Inc., which later changed its
name to AT&T Inc. Frontier,
based in Norwalk, Conn.,
bought the company in 2014.
“At the time, we were
thrilled that a local company in
Norwalk was going to invest in
Connecticut jobs and the Con-
necticut infrastructure network
for broadband,” Mr. Weidlich
said. “We had no vision of
them mismanaging the busi-
ness to the financial status it’s
in today.”
The collective bargaining
agreement reached with the
union last month doesn’t in-
clude medical coverage for 120
to 130 retirees who retired be-
tween 2014 and February 2017.
Another 43 employees who
took retirement packages in
late 2017 will likely be eligible
for higher-cost medical plans
until they qualify for Medicare,
he said.
Part of the new contract in-
cludes a voluntary severance
package, designed to reduce
head count, that provides three
years of medical coverage.
“They were willing to [offer
health benefits] for new retir-
ees, but they were not willing
to address this small number
of people that they’re bailing
out on,” Mr. Weidlich said.
Monique LaBonte, who re-
tired in 2016 after 36 years
with Frontier, said she’s wor-
ried about how she’ll pay for
the expensive, custom-made
compression sleeves and
gloves that she has to wear
due to complications from
breast-cancer treatment.
Her health problems forced
her to retire earlier than the
58-year-old would have liked
from her physically demanding
job, which involved wiring and
troubleshooting at the central
office.

BYKATEKING

Labor Pact

Cuts Out

Frontier

Retirees

$17B

FrontierCommunications’
debt,whichitwantstocut

Sample

Sale

knoll.com/samplesale

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