BT Group Chief Resigns to Join British Government

Mr. Livingston, 48, will leave BT in September after five years in the job and will be replaced by Gavin Patterson, chief executive of its consumer division, BT Retail, in September, the company said in a statement.

Mr. Livingston said leaving BT “has been an incredibly hard decision” but that “the opportunities ahead and the strength of the management team that Gavin will lead mean that the company is in a great position.”

BT shares, which had recently reached their highest level since 2007, fell 2 percent in London after the announcement.

Under Mr. Livingston, BT heavily invested in pay television by starting its own sports channels to compete with rivals including British Sky Broadcasting. The company also reduced costs, tackled its large pension deficit and replaced old copper cabling with more efficient fiber-optic broadband lines for Internet connections.

On the strength of customer demand for high-speed Internet service, BT surprised analysts last month by announcing an unexpectedly strong, 21 percent increase in fiscal fourth-quarter pretax profit.

As trade minister, Mr. Livingston will be responsible for attracting investment to Britain and helping British companies fuel the economic recovery. He will take over from Stephen Green, a former chairman of the British bank HSBC, who is retiring. Mr. Livingston will not receive a salary as minister but will become a member of the House of Lords.

In a statement on the government Web site, Prime Minister David Cameron called Mr. Livingston an “outstanding business leader” who will help to “open new trade links and grow our exports.”

Mr. Patterson, 45, joined BT in 2004 as managing director of its consumer division. Before that, he worked as European marketing director at the consumer goods company, Procter & Gamble. He became chief executive of BT Retail, which sells services to private households and small businesses, in 2008.

“We have great opportunities ahead and are well placed to take advantage of them,” Mr. Patterson said in a statement. “The company is in a strong place.”

BT’s chairman, Michael Rake, said Mr. Patterson had been closely involved in creating BT’s strategy and was “the right person to take it forward.”

“We have a fitting and experienced successor in Gavin Patterson,” he said. “He has a detailed knowledge of all parts of our business and a track record of success.'’

BT Retail contributed about 31 percent of the entire company’s pretax profit in the fiscal year that ended on March 31. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization at BT Retail rose to 1.9 billion pounds, or $3 billion, in 2013, up from 1.8 billion pounds in 2012.

Overall, BT Group had revenue for the year of 18.25 billion pounds, or $28.6 billion.

Public Defender Resigns Over Lack of Resources

For Miles Gerety, the decision was about both quantity and quality.

A little over three years ago, when he took over the state public defender's office in Danbury, Conn., there were six lawyers. Today, that number is four. And so Gerety has decided to retire, effective May 1, rather than to continue to make do with less.

"We are all running around like crazy," said Gerety, 62, a Redding resident. "What I'm upset about is these budget cuts are impinging on my ability to provide the best possible representation. ... I just think the cuts mean the [state office of] Public Defender Services is now being understaffed. There is a breaking point."

Gerety, who has spent 25 years as a public defender, plans to chip in after he retires, taking on individual cases as an assigned counsel, a role that used to be called a special public defender. But he first plans to spend the summer sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

His predecessor as Danbury's top public defender, Robert Field, explained that "Miles is a bit like Don Quixote. He doesn't really like working within systems."

But he's worked in the public defender's system long enough and well enough to have earned the respect of his peers and colleagues, and for them to take his staffing complaints seriously.

"It was devastating for me when I received the news he was leaving after all these years," said New Haven Public Defender Thomas Ullmann. "He has a really great reputation. He always fought the good fight and protected his clients' rights. He's the kind of guy you want to be in the public defender's office. He knew everything about his clients, and their history."

Gerety's complaints might sound familiar.

Two years ago, as Connecticut wrestled with the same budget crisis that's ongoing today, public defenders said spending cuts would push caseloads for lawyers too high and make it difficult for them to meet their constitutional and ethical obligations to the state's poorest citizens.

At the time, the Office of Chief Public Defender, whose roughly 200 lawyers handle more than 90,000 cases a year, had been asked to cut its two-year, $128 million budget by about $9.6 million, or 7.5 percent.

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Monti Resigns in Italy, but May Seek to Regain Office

At a news conference scheduled for Sunday, Mr. Monti is expected to present a political agenda — pro-Europe and pro-fiscal rigor — and call on all parties to endorse it, aides said Friday. Mr. Monti, an economist who has helped restore Italy’s international credibility but has suffered politically for championing a series of tax increases and budget cuts, has steadfastly refused to say whether he will run for prime minister or present an agenda that he hopes parties will endorse. Whether he does run or not, however, he has already radically shifted Italy’s political landscape.

With Italy facing economic uncertainty and sluggish growth, Mr. Monti has emerged as a centrist force in a field previously divided between the center-left Democratic Party of Pier Luigi Bersani, which opinion polls place first, and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has risen in polls since taking to the airwaves with a populist message critical of Mr. Monti’s tax increases.

“He’s de facto a candidate. He is the head politician of this coalition,” said Stefano Folli, a columnist for the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, referring to a centrist grouping that has been courting Mr. Monti.

On Friday evening, Mr. Monti handed in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano, who in a tough speech to lawmakers last week lamented the “brusque” end of the government and Parliament’s failure to carry out significant structural changes in Italy’s encrusted economy.

Mr. Napolitano is soon expected to dissolve Parliament, opening a hard-fought campaign amid rising unemployment, taxes and populism. Mr. Monti will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed. In that time, he is expected to retain the power to pass emergency legislation.

“He’s already a senator for life, so he doesn’t have to become a candidate in the technical way,” Mr. Folli added.

After losing the support of Mr. Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party this month, Mr. Monti said that he would step down after the budget was passed. On Friday, lawmakers voted 373 in favor and 67 against with 15 abstentions in a confidence vote over the budget, which stipulates spending cuts of $4.8 billion through 2015.

Mr. Monti could run as a candidate or endorse a centrist alliance that includes a veteran political party, the Union of Christian Democrats, and Toward the Third Republic, a fledgling civic movement led by the chairman of Ferrari, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. If Mr. Monti lends his name to the centrists, he is expected to draw moderates from Mr. Berlusconi’s party. Mr. Monti also has the implicit support of the Catholic Church, which is crucial to the survival of any Italian government.

After weeks of wavering, Mr. Monti seems to have decided to stay involved in Italian politics after other European leaders, concerned about the prospect of an increasingly populist Mr. Berlusconi, urged him to stay in the picture.

Last week, members of the European People’s Party, a group of center-right parties across Europe, asked the unelected Mr. Monti to attend a summit in Brussels, which Mr. Berlusconi attended as the head of Italy’s largest center-right party. “I can say that there was massive support from E.P.P. members that Monti should remain at the helm of Italy,” said Kostas Sasmatzoglou, the group’s spokesman.

“It was Europe pushing him to continue,” Mr. Folli, the columnist, said. “Germany already has Hollande,” he said, referring to France’s Socialist prime minister, François Hollande. “It doesn’t want another country to go to the left, to go back on fiscal rigor.”

He added: “It can have Bersani, but Bersani ‘corrected’ and supported by Monti.”

Indeed, if he lends them his support, Mr. Monti and the centrist groupings are not expected to get more than 15 percent of the vote. Mr. Bersani’s Democratic Party is expected to place first, but without enough votes to govern in both houses even if it allies with the smaller Left Ecology and Freedom party. It remains to be seen if the center will take votes away from Mr. Berlusconi or Mr. Bersani.

On Thursday, Mr. Monti was widely perceived to have begun his campaign with a politically calculated speech at a Fiat automotive plant in southern Italy. With Fiat’s chairman, Sergio Marchionne, by his side, he said that Italy needed to stay the course on structural changes. The speech effectively challenged Mr. Bersani, a moderate who will most likely have to tack further left.

Mr. Monti came to power in November 2011, replacing Mr. Berlusconi amid global financial panic. He helped burnish Italy’s image abroad, but effectively raised taxes, worsening Italy’s recession. Although populists have depicted Mr. Monti and his government as a puppet of Europe and the banks, many Italians support him as a needed change from politics as usual.

“I prefer Monti to Berlusconi or any other politician, even if he left us in our underwear,” said Annalisa di Piero, 50, a costume designer and stylist, referring to the tax increases that have left Italians with less in their pockets in the holiday shopping season. “I just paid my property tax, but I still prefer him to these other clowns.”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

Drilling Company Chief Resigns Over Inquiry

LONDON — The chief executive of Saipem, the largest European drilling and engineering contractor for the oil industry, resigned Wednesday evening after an Italian prosecutor’s office said it was investigating possible corruption.

The executive, Pietro Franco Tali, also served as deputy chairman of the company, in which the big Italian oil company ENI has a controlling stake.

A Saipem spokesman,  Andrea Pagano Mariano, said  the investigation related  to contracts on oil and gas projects in Algeria involving the state oil company Sonatrach. He declined to elaborate.  

Although Mr. Tali “is in no manner a subject of the prosecutor’s investigation,  he felt that his resignation would better enable the company to respond to the prosector’s inquiry,” Saipem said in a statement. The activities were said to have occurred through 2009.

ENI,  which has roughly 43 percent of Saipem’s shares, held an emergency board meeting Wednesday night, according to a press release. In recent days, it said, the board had urged  the drilling company’s chairman, Alberto Meomartini, “to take immediate remedial actions in managing the situation.”

ENI’s chief financial officer,  Alessandro Bernini, who held the same position at Saipem until 2008, also resigned Wednesday, although he “considers that his actions were right and proper,” according to an ENI release.

An ENI spokeswoman, Erika Mandraffino, said the allegations about Saipem came to ENI’s attention a few days ago. She declined to indicate what the inquiry involves in Algeria, where Saipem has billions of dollars’ worth of oil and gas operations and drilling contracts,  and about 2,600 employees.

Saipem’s board, meanwhile, named the chief operating officer of ENI’s  gas and power division, Umberto Vergine, to replace Mr. Tali as Saipem’s chief.   

The company also suspended Pietro Varone, chief operating officer of Saipem’s engineering and construction unit, following a notice of inquiry from the prosecutor related to the same investigation. Saipem’s board also ordered an internal audit using  external consultants.

“Saipem believes that its business activities have been conducted in compliance with applicable, internal procedures” and its code of ethics, the company said, and has offered its full cooperation to the prosecutor’s office.  

The investigation is a blow to ENI,  which under its chief executive, Paolo Scaroni, is working to establish itself as a premier exploration and production company. Earlier on Wednesday, ENI had announced a new natural gas discovery off the coast of Mozambique, where the company has become an early leader in staking a position in that country’s promising gas reserves.

Although ENI stresses that Saipem is independently managed,  the two companies are closely intertwined. 

In an interview on Nov. 19, Mr. Scaroni  said that while the company was divesting other non-core assets, he considered Saipem “a major asset.”

He said that Saipem was “managed at arm’s length” because ENI was only “one of the customers” of the engineering company. He said Saipem was the top candidate to build the portion of the proposed South Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Eastern and Western Europe,  under the Black Sea. 

ENI, along with Gazprom, is a key backer of the project.

Tereshko Resigns as Supervising Judge in Wake of Critical Superior Court Decision

The Philadelphia judge taken to task by the Pennsylvania Superior Court for failing to disclose that his spouse worked for a law firm representing a defendant in a motor vehicle insurance case has resigned as supervising judge of Philadelphia's civil cases.

Anglo American's Chief Executive Resigns

PARIS — The mining giant Anglo American, beset by labor unrest in South Africa and under fire from disgruntled shareholders, said Friday that its chief executive, Cynthia Carroll, would step down after nearly six years in the position.

“I am extremely proud of everything we have achieved during my period as chief executive,” Ms. Carroll said in a statement, adding that she felt she was right “to hand over to a successor who can build further on the strong foundations we have created.”

Anglo American, which is based in London and listed in both London and Johannesburg, has a vast range of global businesses stretching from iron ore to coal and precious metals. It also owns 85 percent of De Beers, the diamond company.

The company’s South African mining output has been crimped by strikes at its Anglo platinum operations around Rustenburg, Union and Amandelbult. Just Thursday, the company said production there would fall short of its expectations this year.

A strike in August at the Marikana mine run by rival platinum producer, Lonmin, turned violent, with the police firing on demonstrators, killing 34 workers.

Ms. Carroll, an American, is a geologist by training. In March 2007 she became the first woman and the first non-South African to lead Anglo American.

She guided the company through the financial crisis and through major deals, including the Minas-Rio iron ore project, a $5 billion-plus investment — now badly over budget and behind schedule — that upset investors. She also kept the company independent when Xstrata unveiled its takeover attentions in 2009, seeking to create a mining company with a market capitalization of around $94 billion.

Apart from the Minas-Rio situation, analysts generally gave Ms. Carroll good marks for running a complex multinational at a difficult time, noting that she had successfully carried out a major restructuring and cut Anglo American's work force to 100,000 from 150,000. A strategic review, already under way, could lead the company to jettison the troubled platinum business Ms. Carroll had championed, they noted.

But Anglo American’s shares have been under pressure amid doubts about the company’s strategy and concern about the South African operations. They have fallen by about one-quarter from the time Ms. Carroll took over, even as the overall mining sector gained.

The shares rose by 4 percent in London trading Friday.

Ms. Carroll is not leaving immediately, but will continue in the job until a successor is appointed. She will also quit her roles as chairwoman of Anglo American Platinum and of De Beers.

Analysts said Mick Davis, the chief executive of Xstrata, would appear to be a good candidate to replace Ms. Carroll. Mr. Davis, a South African, will be available after Xstrata and Glencore complete their merger in a few months. But John Parker, the Anglo American chairman, said Friday morning during a conference call that the company “could not afford” Mr. Davis, who is reputed to be one of the best-paid bosses in Britain.

The departure of Ms. Carroll — ranked this year by Forbes magazine as 55th on its list of the world’s 100 most powerful women — also marks a setback to activists’ efforts to get more women to the top of the corporate ladder. She was one of just three female chief executives of FTSE 100 companies, along with Alison Cooper, head of Imperial Tobacco, and Angela Ahrendts, head of the fashion retailer Burberry Group.

A European Commission proposal that companies be required to have at least 40 percent of board positions held by women failed to advance this week because of legal challenges and opposition within the European Union.