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SECTION 3 TUESDAY INSIDE White Sox will try out ad agencies. PAGE 3 IN THE WEB EDITION For continually updated business news, go to chicagotribune.com/business ON THE RADIO: Hear the Tribune business reports at 6:41 p.m. weeknights on WBBM-AM 780. 10-YEAR T-NOTE 500 NASDAQ DOW INDUST. 1531.055.14% 2626.60 13,612.98 UAW, carmakers foresee the apocalypse.

JIM MATEJA, PAGE 3 From Tribune news services WASHINGTON Investors who lost money when the dot- com bubble burst suffered a setback at the Supreme Court on Monday, and the justices are scheduled to issue another important decision in a case involving Naperville-based Tel- labs Inc. that could restrict shareholder lawsuits. The justices, in a 7-1 vote that gave investment banks a new shield from antitrust claims, threw out lawsuits that accused the securities industry of rigging 900 initial public offerings. In doing so, they overturned a federal appeals court ruling that had permitted suits against 16 investment banks and institutional investors. The inves- tors suing the firms sought billions of dollars in damages.

The suits had threatened to roil the IPO business. Wall revenue from stock underwriting has climbed an average 13 percent a year since 1995, reaching a record $19 billion in 2006, and is on pace to surpass that figure this year, based on estimates by Bank of America analyst Michael Hecht. It have opened up a real said James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University in Durham, N.C. practices that were being chal- lenged were a variety of practices that the underwriters customarily The high court said an antitrust shield was warranted because the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates IPOs and lays out detailed rules governing what steps underwriters can and take. was a monster, huge case that tried to sue everybody Court throws out IPO suits Investment banks win shield against antitrust claims Supreme Court to define rights in plans.

PAGE 6 PLEASE SEE INVESTORS, PAGE6 By Bruce Japsen Tribune staff reporter A leading U.S. AIDS group said Monday that Abbott lawsuit against French activists who shut down the Web site in April to protest the pricing of its HIV drug Kaletra will further tarnish the image around the world. A French judge has scheduled an Oct. 26 hearing in lawsuit against Act Up-Paris, which was filed in a Paris criminal court May 23, the company confirmed Monday. Abbott said the French group launched a on the Web site April 26 that thwarted worldwide access for on the eve of the annual shareholder meeting.

the latest scrape North Chicago-based Abbott has had with AIDS groups around the world over a controversial decision earlier this year to withhold drug applications in Thailand. Abbott has continued to reiterate its determination to protect its intellectual property since it became embroiled in a dispute with Thai officials over pricing of Kaletra that led Thailand to say it planned to make generic copies of the medicine that effectively would break patent protection. AIDS groups say the lawsuit against Act Up-Paris takes hardball business tactics to a new level and that the litigation will only serve to damage image internationally at a time when drugmakers are already reeling in the court of public opinion. is fully committed to being the poster child of said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest AIDS group. would be a gross understatement to say that this is David versus Goliath.

These strong-arm tactics are not going to succeed in any other way other than to give Abbott another black In a statement Act-Up Paris posted on its Web site last week the group said move was first time a drug company has used legal action against this strategy will force Abbott to justify its criminal decisions, which are depriving living with in Thailand of the new drugs, effectively sentencing them to Earlier this year Thailand said it could not afford the price Abbott charges for Kaletra and Activists: image tarnished AIDS group says suit is a strong-arm tactic PLEASE SEE ABBOTT, PAGE6 By Mary Umberger Tribune staff reporter Think the residential real estate market is tough? Try finding a buyer for your unwanted graves. Never an easy sell, disposing of extra burial plots has become more difficult. The latest tactic is to offer them online, via at least a half-dozen sites that some marketers tout as a listing for cemetery lots. And, yes, you can even sell them on eBay. Just expect it to happen at all.

near said Chicagoan Jacqueline Heins Miles, who for three years has been trying to find a buyer for her seven plots, inherited from her mother, in Oak Woods Cemetery. never thought it would take so Miles, like increasing numbers of Americans, is frustrated that changing times seem to have rendered obsolete the dynastic notion of a long said Michael Martin, a cemetery broker in San Juan Capistrano, who started a Web- based business after a decade of selling plots to consumers and bereaved families in the traditional face-to-face manner. noticed that people would call in, wanting to sell their said Martin. cemeteries usually want to buy them back. in the business of selling, not in the business of Deciding there was an un- served marketplace in resale, he became an online broker.

His site, PlotExchange.com, is one of at least half a dozen such ventures, typically offering to match sellers who live in one part of the country with buyers who live in another. PLEASE SEE CEMETERY, PAGE6 think crypts have gone out of Flack of Des Plaines Tribune photo by David Trotman-Wilkins Donald and Linda Flack of Des Plaines have heard only from scammers in the three years they have advertised to sell two mausoleum crypts at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie that they have owned since the early 1990s. Dead market for grave sites 20 40 60 80 BODY DISPOSITION METHODS A a percent of total U.S. deaths Source: National Funeral Directors Assoc. Chicago Tribune More cremations Burial Cremation As family members move away from each other and cremations are more common, cemetery plots bought long ago go unused By Julie Johnsson Tribune staff reporter PARIS Airbus SAS is back in the game.

Or at least that was the message company officials sought to send Monday as they kicked off the Paris Air Show by announcing a series of airplane orders, including one for 92 jets worth $10 billion from US Airways. Chicago-based Boeing Co. battled right up to the eve of the show but failed to win the US Airways order, the largest made by a U.S. network carrier since the aviation market collapsed in 2001. John Leahy, chief operating officer for European plane manufacturer, said the deal finalized until Thursday night.

think got some momentum going for the rest of the Leahy added. chalet, a temporary center built for the show at the edge of the runway at Le Bourget, a hamlet north of Paris, was chaotic Monday. Company officials announced new deals every hour or so to a room that featured a buffet and overflowed with journalists and analysts. Aircraft roared outside during an afternoon flying demonstration. In contrast, temporary quarters seemed tranquil.

The American aerospace giant AP photo by Pascal Rossignol Airbus chief Louis Gallois (from left) talks as French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and French Defense Minister Herve Morin look at an Airbus A350 model Monday at the Paris Air Show. PLEASE SEE AIRBUS, PAGE6 Airbus lands big orders as Paris Air Show opens By Ameet Sachdev Tribune staff reporter In kicking off closing arguments on Monday, the prosecution described Conrad Black, the former chairman of Hollinger International as a liar and thief and the central figure in a series of dirty deals that enriched him and other former executives while defrauding shareholders. care about the Assistant U.S. Atty. Julie Rudersaid.

rules matter to Mr. The biggest rule he broke, she contended, was that he treated Hollinger as his private an entity owned by public shareholders. In the process, he and other former executives stole over $60 The theft, Ruder argued, was cleverly concealed by a paper that fooled even the auditors and lawyers. She urged the jury expose this cover job for the lie it To convict, she said, the jury should focus on the testimony of the people who purchased newspapers between 1998 and 2000, when the company was selling off assets to pay debts. Black and co-defendants Peter Atkinson, John Boultbee and Mark Kipnisare accused of skimming millions from those deals by inserting bogus non- competition agreements into the transactions.

They face a variety of criminal charges, including racketeering and multiple counts of mail and wire fraud. Ruder told the jury that single most critical, most important fact in this fraud is that the buyers did not request that the executives be included in non-compete agreements signed with the company. Parent company Hollinger a Toronto-based entity controlled by Black, also illegally received non-compete payments, prosecutors charge. crime in this case is that the defendants hid and lied about the true reasons why money was Ruder said. Jurors listened intently as Ruder methodically pieced together nearly three months of complex testimony into a coherent argument.

She spoke directly to the panel over six hours, rarely glancing at her notes as her boss, U.S. Atty.Pat- rick on. wife, Barbara Amiel Black, and his three children also sat in the packed courtroom. Kipnis and Boultbee also had family members present. lawyers will deliver BLACK ON TRIAL Jurors urged to bare the lies Ex-press lord placed at center of plots PLEASE SEE BLACK, PAGE6 Product: CTBIZ PubDate: 06-19-2007 Zone: ALL Edition: HD Page: BIZ1-1 User: sjnovak Time: Color: CMYK.