IN BRIEF

WASHINGTON

Citigroup agrees to pay fine, be censured

Citigroup Inc. has agreed to pay a $600,000 fine and be censured to settle regulators' charges that it failed to supervise complex stock-trading strategies aimed at reducing the bank's potential tax bill.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization, on Monday announced the civil fine against the bank's division Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Citigroup did not admit or deny the authority's allegations.

Citigroup failed to supervise and control trading, and to prevent improper internal trades as well as those with some of the bank's trading partners, the authority said. The transactions in question occurred between 2000 and 2005.

One of the strategies involved a Citigroup unit in New York buying stock from foreign brokerage customers. After some time had elapsed, during which the taxable dividends on the stock were paid out, the stock was sold back to the customers, the authority said.

Citigroup shares rose 14 cents, or 3.02 percent, Monday to close at $4.77 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Service outage zaps Sidekick phones' data

T-Mobile USA Inc. has temporarily stopped sales of its Sidekick phones after a service disruption caused customers to lose calendars and contact lists.

The loss of personal information probably affected a minority of Sidekick customers, an external spokeswoman for the Bellevue, Wash.-based company said in an e-mail. Almost all data services are now operational, she said.

Information was lost after a server failure disrupted Microsoft Corp.'s Danger platform, which runs the Sidekick beginning on Oct. 2. Customers are unlikely to get that data back, Microsoft said. Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile's parent company, introduced the line of keyboard-equipped phones to encourage customers to send e-mails.

NEW YORK

Onyx Pharmaceuticals to acquire Proteolix

Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Monday it will buy cancer drug developer Proteolix Inc. in a deal that could be worth as much as $851 million.

Onyx will pay $276 million upfront for the privately held South San Francisco company, and in the process it gains Proteolix's cancer drug candidate carfilzomib, which is being tested as a treatment for multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and solid tumors. Its drugs are designed to trigger cancer cell death with minimal damage to the rest of the patient's body.

Onyx, of South San Francisco, will pay another $40 million next year if carfilzomib reaches a development milestone, and will pay an additional $535 million if carfilzomib is approved in the U.S. and Europe.

Fundraising dips for venture capitalists

Venture-capital fundraising dropped to its lowest point in six years during the third quarter as financial turmoil continued to buffet universities and pension funds' investments in startup companies.

Venture firms raised $1.56 billion in the quarter, the National Venture Capital Association said in a statement. The number of dollars committed was the lowest since the first quarter of 2003, while the 17 investment pools raised were the fewest since the third quarter of 1994.