The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 13

BUSINESS CooAncjctcc axmcB Friday. IXcrinber 18, 1987 LF Part IV S.J. DIAMOND Carbide Assessed $270-Million 'Interim' Damages lives and injured 50,000 more people. Deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from tanks at the plant owned by Union Carbide India an Indian subsidiary of the multinational firm. As the chemical escaped, it formed a poisonous fog that ultimately covered a slum surrounding the plant The Indian government, acting on behalf of all the victims, has demanded about $3 billion in damages; the Danbury, Conn-based chemical company is believed to have offered $500 million to $600 million.

The negotiations broke down, however, over the issue of liability. Union Carbide, which claims that the deadly leak was caused by employee sabotage, has rejected any settlement that assigns fault to the corporation or to Union Carbide India Ltd. In his 17-page order, Deo said the interim relief was not meant to prejudice any future judicial finding in the case. On several previous occasions. Union Carbide has agreed to the principle of smaller amounts of interim relief for the victims.

However, the judge strongly suggested that the company was at fault, if not for the accident itself, at least for storing large amounts of the gas used in making pesticides and fertilizer at the Bhopal plant "It cannot be denied that an unprecedented tragedy took place on account of a deadly leak from the UCIL's Union Carbide India Ltd. hazardous activity of storing deadly material, the leakage of which could not be ruled out" the judge ruled. Citing both English law and Sanskrit scriptures, he added: "Will it not be prudent to order payment of a relative sum bearing in mind all the progress in the case so far?" Union Carbide officials criticized the order. "It amounts to awarding damages without a trial, a practice counter to the laws of India and the democracies," Carbide spokesman Robert M. Berzok said in New York.

"Although we are deeply concerned for the victims," Berzok continued, "interim compensation has never been allowed where the evidence with respect to liability is in dispute. Given strong evidence that the tragedy was caused by employee sabotage liability for Bhopal is indeed in serious dispute and has not been determined." Please tee BHOPAL, Page 3 J-- 'Mh-. f-, i 1 Flier Beware of Fine Print on Restricted Fares New York, $119. Washington, $147. Miami, $129.

That's some of the big print, boldface type in a recent big newspaper ad run by TWA. In small print, at the bottom, are all the "fare conditions" that make it hard to get such fares, including this note: "Most fares are non-refundable" and subject to "cancellationchange of dateitinerary penalties." Translation: Travelers who change or cancel their flights will pay. For some time, the general rule has been that the further ahead a seat was booked, the lower the ticket price. Now there's a codicil, only elliptically noted in ads: The cheaper the fare, the bigger the penalty for changing or canceling plans. By contrast, people who pay regular fare, and often book at the last minute, can "go and come when they want," says Delta spokesman Dick Jones in Atlanta, "and if they decide not to go, we refund 100 of their ticket." Not unexpectedly, the roster of penalties on different fares is so complicated that even airline spokesmen have to "go get the book." At Eastern and Delta, for example, (and there are exceptions, depending on area and flight), the seven-day, advance-purchase, deepest discount fares are entirely non-refundable; a seven-day-ahead lesser discount fare forfeits 50, and a two-day-ahead fare forfeits 25.

At TWA, a 30-day advance purchase ticket is non-refundable, a 14-day-ahead discount ticket gets 25 to 50 refund and the seven-day-ahead discount purchases are totally refundable. Usually, exceptions are made only for death or illness (and only in the immediate family, a United spokesman says), which the passenger must prove with a death certificate or doctor's letter. Even then, he or she may be permitted a change of flight but not a refund. Blame the No-Shows Some airlines also make an exception for simply missing a plane. Eastern, for one, offers a standby ticket on the next available flight if the ticket holder was less than an hour late.

United allows two hours. TWA says only that each case is a "judgment call" for the airport supervisor, spokesman Bob Blatt-ner in St. Louis says. Almost all domestic carriers have cancellation penalties. Indeed, Delta tried to change the approach last fall, applying the larger penalties not to tickets bought furthest ahead but to those bought closest to the flight, "but no one followed Delta's lead," says Jones.

"We would have been out there all alone, so we suspended the program." The penalties are meant "to stimulate travel," says Karen Cer-emsak, an Eastern spokesman, and to help the airlines "better manage inventory," i.e., control how many seats are solidly sold and at what price. People are drawn to make reservations by the deep discounts, and the stiff penalties encourage them to keep their reservations a longtime problem for domestic carriers. "People were making reservations on two or three Delta flights," says Jones, "and we were running up to 30 no-shows." This seemed unfair to the airlines, which "see an airline seat as a perishable commodity," says American Airlines spokesman Al Becker in Dallas. "It's revenue-generating only on the day it flies," but unlike theaters and other seat sellers, airlines didn't charge if people didn't show up to fill their seats. The implication is that no-shows were particularly common on low-fare, advance-purchase reservations, notably "the leisure traveler.

If you're making vacation plans," says Dan Sheehy at United in Chicago, "you usually make reservations several months in advance but don't always stick to your plan or call and say you changed your mind." But as Eastern's Ceremsak says, "we have no breakdown where the no-shows were." Some observers, Please see DIAMOND, Page 3 GNP Growth The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 4.3 before the market collapse, the government said. page 2 By RONE TEMPEST. Timet Staff Writer NEW DELHI An Indian district court judge Thursday ordered Union Carbide Co. to pay about $270 million in "interim compensation and welfare measures' to victims of the 1984 poisonous gas leak at its pesticide plant in Bhopal.

Union Carbide officials immediately protested the order, calling it "awarding damages without a trial." Bhopal District Court Judge M. W. Deo said he ordered the substantial interim relief because talks aimed at settling the case between Union Carbide and the Indian government appeared to be "bogged down in the din of diverse loud voices." Attorneys for both sides said they had hoped to settle the case earlier this month, before the third anniversary of the Dec 2, 1984, disaster that claimed at least 1,500 High-tech auctioneer Kirk Dove fields the brisk bidding during the liquidation auction at Mindset Corp. headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Nearly 400 bargain-hunting bidders filled the auction hall, below.

Bidding for Chips' Mindset Corp. Goes Under the High-Tech Gavel By VICTOR P. ZON ANA, Times Staff Writer SUNNYVALE In 1984, Mindset Corp. was the toast of Silicon Valley, boasting a fat bankroll and a product so stylish that it was selected for the Museum of Modern Art's design collection in New York. But now it is just another victim of the shakeout among makers of personal computers, and people came here in droves on Thursday to pick over the carcass.

"I got 200 for this beautiful PC with two floppy drives, color monitor and printer, can I hear two-and-a-half? Two-and-a-half, three, three-and-a-half, will anyone say four? Four hundred. OK, 400 going once, going twice, sold!" sang Kirk Dove, high-tech auctioneer, as he banged down his gavel and moved quickly to the next item. There was no time to spare. The auction was billed a "complete facility liquidation." Before the day was out, Dove and his partners peddled 1,500 lots of merchandise, including potted plants, plotters, printers, phones, furniture and personal computers by the hundred. Dove has specialized in this sort of thing since 1984, when his firm, Ross-Dove Co.

of San Mateo, sold off the remains of the defunct Osborne Computer Co. Since then, Ross-Dove has handled 110 high-tech auctions. Half were bankruptcies and other distress sales; the rest were commissioned by such companies as Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and BusinessLand to get rid of excess inventory. Parker Made Its By BRUCE HOROVITZ, Times Staff Writer For Parker Pen, it was the write stuff. After all, specially made Parker pens were in hand when President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed an agreement last week that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

While the pact took more than six years to hammer out, Parker says its marketing coup required only six weeks of planning with the State Department. But Parker didn't stop there. In an attempt to etch its place in history, the New Haven, pen maker spent $500,000 to place full page advertisements earlier this week in newspapers nationwide. Under the headline, "The pen is mightier than the sword," the ad showed a photo of Reagan and Gorbachev signing the treaty. "The historic document is signed," the ad said.

"The pen is a Parker." All this has left the folks at rivals Cross Co. and Sheaffer Pen Co. with ink on their faces. "Sure I wish we'd done it," said Joe Biafore, chief executive of Pittsfield, Shearson Prediction Shearson Lehman Bros, executives foresee a tough 18 months for the securities industry. page 3 DowUp 50.90; Market Stages Broad Advance NEW YORK GD-The stock market staged a broad advance today in heavy trading intensified by a quarterly "witching hour" involving stock-index futures and options.

The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials climbed 50.90 to 1,975.30, closing out the week with a gain of 108.26. That surpassed the record weekly point rise of 100.30 set the week before. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by more than 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,286 up, 383 down and 310 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 276.22 million shares, against 191.78 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index picked up 3.12 to 139.14.

The day began amid general expectations of heavy activity and unpredictable swings in stock prices, with December options and futures on stock indexes approaching expiration. In a process adopted earlier this year with the aim of smoothing out the witching hour, some of the contracts were settled on the basis of today's opening stock prices, and others at the close. Reports from the NYSE floor before the opening and again before the close showed a preponderance of buy orders for most stocks used by program traders in index arbitrage transactions along with the options and futures. While the witching hour muddied the overall picture, analysts said investors seemed to respond favorably to a rally in the dollar, a drop in interest rates, and an assertion by Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, that a recent jump in the nation's reported trade deficit was an "aberration" that is likely to be reversed in the next monthly figures. The credit markets staged an impressive rebound in fairly lively trading early today after losing some ground on Thursday.

The Treasury's bellwether 30-year bond, which in Thursday's session fell about Vi point, or $1.25 per $1,000 in face amount, rose $16.25 by midday. Its yield, which moves inversely to its price, slipped to 8.98 from 9.15 late Thursday. Maria F. Ramirez, a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert attributed today's rally to a perceived lack of supply of bonds, particularly the 30-year issue. She said the market is speculating that at Please see STOCKS, Page 2 i upscale pens Pens priced at more than $10 represent i .1 ma i i i.

loss viian iuo ui luiai sales in me U.S. Den and pencil market. Other 10 Sheaffer 15 Parker 15 Cross 60 Sourca: Industry eatlmatea dream. But until now, few such dreams had been planned. The Reagan-Gorbachev signing with a Parker represents a new twist on age-old effort by pen makers to Please see PARKER, Page 6 Photoa by JAMES PEASE Sam Frisher, a Gardena scrap dealer and electronic components merchant, had his eye on Mindset's old circuit boards.

"You can either take out the gold or sell the circuit boards to other electronics companies," he explained. And Lois Gordon, a San Jose travel agent, bought two Mindset PCs with printers. "One is for my sister-in-law in Denver, who needs it for spare parts. And I bought one for myself for $500 the printer alone would cost $400 but I'm afraid my husband is going to kill me." Others, however, balked at the pric-Please see AUCTION, Page 6 Before Ink Dried to me like the whim of one marketing person," said Ben Eriis, professor of marketing at USC. "I wonder just how many people will make the connection between the advertisement and Parker." Parker executives, nevertheless, are ecstatic.

"We put the Parker name in the public eye," said Owen Jones, director of manufacturing at -Parker. "More than an advertisement, this was a statement." Unlike the manufacturers of everything from beer to tennis shoes, pen makers haven't yet taken to the costly business of paying celebrities to use their products in public. Gorbachev, of course, didn't collect one ruble for using the sterling silver Parker although he did get to keep the fountain pen that is valued at about $250. Reagan also kept his, and Parker already has on display two extra pens that were made just in case something went wrong with the Seeing its product in the right hands at the right time is a pen manufacturer's Battle for Britoil British Petroleum said it boosted its stake in the North Sea oil producer to 24.9. 7 "We can advertise the event and sell off the stuff in a day," he said.

That certainly appeared to be the case Thursday. Nearly 400 bargain hunters including scrap dealers, housewives, computer nerds and entrepreneurspacked Mindset's old headquarters and vied frantically for the goods. "We're expanding our own business and came here to pick up little bits and pieces," said Mike Cleland of San Jose's ICI Array Technology, who paid $900 for a used Apple Macintosh computer. "It's an old model, but we can upgrade it." Mark on Summit Mass. -based Sheaffer Eaton, parent of Sheaffer.

"With the trend back toward more expensive pens, you'll see more and of this kind of stuff." Agreed an envious Dan Lammon, manager of product marketing at Sheaffer: "In all honesty, I thought it was a good ad." Not Reagan's Style The marketing ploy required no great lobbying. When news of the proposed summit first leaked out, a Parker sales representative who sells pens to the State Department immediately made some inquiries with officials there. The request was approved, even though Reagan more commonly signs documents with felt tip pens. But not all advertising experts are impressed with Parker's efforts. "Sometimes when advertisers search for something new to say, they can really stretch their credibility," said Nancy Shalek, general manager of the West Coast office of the ad firm W.

B. Doner Co. "This sounds Hopes for Texaco An adviser to Texaco's shareholders is confident a deal will be reached soon. PAGE 6 Index NYSE 4 Commodities ..8 Amex. 8 Mutual Funds 10 OTC 9 Earnings ......5 Bonds 10 T-Bills 8 11 5.