April 9, 2003

Bombay High Court gives dome

Federal officials charge HealthSouth Corp's former chief financial officer Michael D Martin with participating in multibillion-dollar accounting fraud, but Judge U W Clemon refuses, at least temporarily, to accept Martin's guilty plea; Clemon complains that US attorney Alice Martin infringed on court's scheduling prerogatives when she announced that Martin would become ninth company official in case to plead guilty; says he will not give impression that court is part of prosecutorial team; Martin says clerk scheduled hearing apparently without informing Clemon; Joel Gordon and Robert May, company directors who are acting as chairman and chief executive, respectively, are trying to distance company from Richard M Scrushy, ousted founder and chief executive who is accused of helping inflate profits by $2.5 billion since 1997; chart; photos (M)

Lufthansa says it had unexpectedly high first-quarter loss because of war in Iraq and decline in travel on its Asian routes because of concern about SARS; says it will reduce workweek for both ground and cabin crews to help slump (S)

New emphasis at Justice Department on accounting and securities fraud cases is already producing indictments and will almost certainly lead over next several months to wave of additional cases; nine months after Pres Bush ordered formation of federal task force to prosecute corporate fraud, former chief executives of Enron and WorldCom have not been charged, and may never be; federal prosecutors are moving aggressively in other cases to bring criminal charges for accounting gimmickry or securities fraud that in past might not have been pursued; North American Securities Administrators Association president Christine A Bruenn says prosecutors and prospective defendants are taking such cases more seriously; investigations that would once have been conducted solely by Securities and Exchange Commission now involve federal prosecutors and FBI officials from start; case of Symbol Technologies vice president Robert Asti, who pleaded guilty last month to helping inflate company's sales and profit, discussed; chart; photos (M)

Hong Kong and Singapore health officials warn citizens that mysterious respiratory disease has spread so far it will be hard to bring under control any time soon, if ever, although they are emphasizing measures to slow spread of SARS; photo; WHO remains cautiously optimistic about containing disease; epidemiologists tracing most cases to close person-to-person contact suspect previously unknown member of coronavirus family; Dr David L Heymann and other experts explain efforts (M)