•Companies

Citi to pay $18 million: Citigroup Inc. will pay nearly $18 million in refunds and settlement charges for taking $14 million from customers’ credit card accounts, California’s attorney general said yesterday. Citigroup will make refunds to the 53,000 customers affected, and pay $3.5 million in damages and civil penalties to the state of California, which had been investigating the questionable practices for three years, the attorney general said. The bank will also pay 10 percent interest to California customers, who accounted for $1.6 million of the money “swept” out of accounts and into a Citi fund between 1992 and 2003. Citigroup’s “account sweeping program” automatically removed positive balances from customers’ credit card accounts, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. said. For instance, if a customer double-paid a bill by mistake or refunded a purchase for credit, that positive balance was then taken from the customer without notification, Brown said. “The company knowingly stole from its customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased, when it designed and implemented the sweeps,” said Brown in a statement. “When a whistleblower uncovered the scam and brought it to his superiors, they buried the information and continued the illegal practice.” (Associated Press)

Mattel gets only $40 million in Bratz case: A federal jury in Riverside, Calif., yesterday awarded Mattel Inc. $40 million in damages in a federal copyright lawsuit that pitted the house of Barbie against MGA Entertainment Inc., the maker of the saucy Bratz dolls. Damages were awarded for contract interference and copyright infringement. No punitive damages were ordered against MGA. The same jury that decided the damages phase concluded last month that Bratz designer Carter Bryant came up with the Bratz concept while working at Mattel. MGA hailed the decision as vindication in the long-running case. “This jury found there was no guilt,” MGA’s Larian said. MGA lawyer Thomas Nolan said the jury had awarded just 2 percent of the damages Mattel had sought. The amount of damages turned on the question of whether jurors believed MGA should only be held responsible for profits derived from the first four Bratz dolls — which came from Bryant’s drawings — or from all the subsequent Bratz dolls and related products. (Associated Press)

•Markets

Dollar advances: The dollar rose against major currencies yesterday in New York, ending at 109.63 Japanese yen, up from Monday’s close of 109.35 yen. The euro closed at 3:30 p.m. at $1.4650, down from $1.4756.

Metals climb: Gold for current delivery closed at $822.20 a troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from Monday’s close of $819.80. Silver closed at $13.572 an ounce, up from $13.365.

Fuels rise: October light, sweet crude oil rose $1.16 to $116.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September heating oil rose 5.85 cents to $3.2099 a gallon. September gasoline rose 8.74 cents to $2.9697 a gallon. September natural gas rose 45.3 cents to $8.278 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Associated Press